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MATTHEW LYON 

The Hampden of Congress 
a biography 



ILLUSTRATED 



J. FAIRFAX Mclaughlin, ll.d. 

Author e/ '^College Days at Georgetown,"'' "'Origin of the Star Spangled 

Banner"" "-Sketches of Fisher Ames, Alexander H. Stepluns, 

and Benjamin Robbins Curtis" etc. 



* 



NEW YORK: 

Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Company 

MDCCCC 



"'T\ 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

APR 19 1904 

Ctpyrleht Entry 
Cli-\,« . 1 1 - ; c^ d 
CLASS ^ XXc. No. 

/ '^ ^ -1 T- 
COPY A 






CONTENTS 



PACK 

Introduction vii-xi 

Chapter I. 

A glance at Irish history. Wicklow. Boyhood of Matthew 

Lyon in Dublin. His departure for America 1-48 

Chapter II. 

The Stamp Act. Lyon in youth a Connecticut Redemptioner. 
Marries Ethan Allen's niece. Removes with Thomas 
Chittenden to Vermont. Dr. Dwight's strictures on 
Vermont and Vermonters 49~96 

Chapter III. 

Yorkers and Green Mountain Boys. Hampshire Grants Con- 
troversy. The Revolution. Lyon in Ethan Allen's 
storming party at Ticonderoga. Cashiered by Gates. 
Restored by Schuyler. Lyon rescues St. Clair's army 
from Burgoyne. Fills important stations in Vermont.. 97^166 

Chapter IV. 

Lost Sibyl leaves of Gov. Chittenden. Death of Mrs. Lyon. 
Haldimand Intrigue. Gov. Chittenden's daughter be- 
comes Col. Lyon's second wife. He founds Fair Haven. 
Elected to Congress 167-208 

Chapter V. 

The Federalists rule with an iron rod. Peter Porcupine an un- 
rivalled scold. The Lyon-Griswold fight. Pistolers and 
pugilists in Congress. A century of Hotspurs 209-305 



iv CONTENTS 

Chapter VI. 

PACK 

President Adams sends Col. Lyon to prison, as Charles the 
First sent John Hampden, and is overthrown in some- 
what the same way. The X. Y. Z. imposture. Hamil- 
ton in the ascendant. He strikes at John Adams, who 
strikes back and crushes him. Lyon's triumphant re- 
entry in Congress 306-382 

Chapter VIL 

Jefferson elected President. Lyon's decisive part in the result. 
Fictions and fables of a century laid bare. Lyon's letter 
to ex-President Adams 383-406 

Chapter VI IL 

Westward Ho! Col. Lyon founds Eddyville. Kentucky. 
Again in Congress. A study of John Randolph of 
Roanoke. Henry Clay and Matthew Lyon disciples of 
Matthew Carey. Clay and Jackson hostile to Jefferson 
through the machinations of Burr. Lyon opens the 
eyes of Jackson to his mistake. Clay also enlightened 
and refuses his hand to Burr in New York. Lyon calls 
Madison the Caucus President. Opposes war of 181J, 
and like Randolph loses his seat in Congress. Dis- 
tinguished descendants of Col. Lyon. His friendly rela- 
tions with Josiah Quincy. President Monroe appoints 
Lyon Factor to Cherokee Nation. Again elected to 
Congress, but dies at Spadra Bluff before he can take 
his seat. Re-interred at Eddyville 407-475 

Appendix. 

Col. Lyon's religious faith. His relations with Burr and Wil- 
kinson. His letters to Josiah Quincy and Armisted C. 
Mason. Letter to Lyon of Albert Gallatin. Lyon's 
farewell letter in Niles's Register a political curiosity. . 477-512 

General Index Si3"53i 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Matthew Lyon Frontispiece 

J. Fairfax McLaughlin xi 

Thomas Chittenden 147 

Lyon-Griswold Fight in Congress. A Cartoon 229 

John Adams 306 

Thomas Jefferson 383 

Chittenden Lyon 418 

Willis B. Machen 422 

Edward C. Machen 426 



INTRODUCTION. 

■\J O other American has illustrated more thoroughly than 
Matthew Lyon the excellence of democratic institutions 
in affording to every man of character and talents a fair field for 
honorable distinction. But so fleeting is political eminence, so 
evanescent are the highest distinctions of government, that it 
is doubtful whether the name of Lyon, who in his day and 
generation filled conspicuous places as soldier, civilian and 
congressman, and was as well known as any man in America, 
has not been entirely forgotten by ninety-nine out of every 
hundred American citizens. Such is fame. 

A century ago he who did not know Matthew Lyon of 
Vermont might well confess himself unknown. In a century 
more how few of the great men of to-day, heroes of the 
passing hour, presidents, governors, senators, congressmen, 
ambassadors, generals and admirals, alas, how few of them all 
shall have escaped the fate of Matthew Lyon, and, like him, not 
be entirely forgotten! 

" The evil that men do lives after them, 
The good is oft interred with their bones." 

Feeling an aversion for political pamphleteers who pretend 
to write American history, I resolved many years ago to inves- 
tigate diligently all accessible sources of information which 
might throw light upon the events of Matthew Lyon's life, 
and to gather up the facts of his career into a connected nar- 
rative. It was an immense labor. Local chronicles, moth- 



Vlll INTRODUCTION 

eaten documents, court records, congressional and State legis- 
lative annals, and county, town and State histories; innumer- 
able pamphlets and lists of essays, addresses, lectures, and other 
fugitive productions, often found in book catalogues comprised 
under the head of Americana ; old letters fortunately preserved 
in the hands of his descendants and others; — such was the wide 
field in which I delved industriously for long years. Interest 
in the subject constantly increased, and after I had compiled 
a half dozen big scrap-books, I began to digest materials and 
write the following pages. At last the task, thought quixotic 
by several friends, was completed. 

I had written the life of Matthew Lyon, but who was going 
to pubHsh it? One publisher after another was consulted, and 
all of them proved languid. " Who was Matthew Lyon? " 
They did not know anything about him ; the public was not in- 
terested in him. From the commercial point of view, they saw 
no money in such a book. Reluctantly enough the manuscript 
was laid aside, and might have reposed neglected in my library 
until vixit should be written after my name, when probably it 
would be sent to the paper mill with other rubbish, or left to 
be devoured by mice in the attic. From this fate a lineal de- 
scendant of the old Revolutionary hero finally rescued it by 
what appeared to be the merest accident. 

He chanced to read an article of mine in the New York Sun 
on the late Hon. John Randolph Tucker, a few days after the 
death of that brilliant Virginian, and surmised that the writer 
pcradventure might know something about his own great- 
grandfather, Matthew Lyon. This haphazard conjecture was 
brought to my notice by a letter from the gentleman in ques- 
tion. Col. Edward Chittenden Machen, of New York city. 



INTRODUCTION IX 

Great was his surprise when he learned that I had written a 
Matthew Lyon biography. He called upon me, I handed him 
the manuscript for perusal, negotiations were opened for its 
publication, and in this strange, almost romantic manner the 
following pages have been brought to light. Colonel Machen 
not only paid me for my work, but has assumed all the ex- 
penses of the publication, and his pious reverence for his ances- 
tor deserves a suitable recognition from every one, now or here- 
after, who may become interested in the subject. 

A native of Ireland, born in the year 1750, in the Golden Belt 
of Wicklow, Matthew Lyon had the misfortune, according to 
the Kentucky historian Collins, of losing his father in the in- 
surrection of the White Boys, who was cruelly put to death 
by the English because he loved his country and took up arms 
against the intolerable oppression of its invaders. An 
ancestor of the author of this book, Edmund Sheehy of Clon- 
mel, grandfather of Lady Blessington on her mother's side, 
was likewise judicially murdered during the same unhappy 
days. Whether on account of this fellowship in the martyr- 
dom of their fathers, or from other patriotic affinities, James 
Sheehy, of Alexandria, Virginia, and Matthew Lyon, of Ver- 
mont, became warm friends while the latter was a member of 
Congress at Washington in the year 1803. James Sheehy was 
the son of the above Edmund, and a nephew of Father Nicho- 
las Sheehy, who in the year 1766 was horribly butchered by 
the English, beheaded and quartered, because he would not 
reveal the secrets of the confessional to his accusers. James 
left Ireland and became a wealthy importing merchant at Alex- 
andria, Virginia." His own son Edmund was my maternal 

"Madden's Life of the Countess of Blessington, I, 16. 



X INTRODUCTION 

grandfather, who told me in my childhood of Matthew Lyon, 
and of that gentleman's visits to his father's house. Thus be- 
gan my interest in the subject of this biography. 

Colonel Lyon was twice married. His first wife was a niece 
of Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga; his second a daugh- 
ter of Thomas Chittenden, the first and most celebrated of the 
Governors of Vermont. Lyon founded the town of Fair 
Haven in that State, a seat of thriving industry; and 
afterwards the town of Eddyville on Cumberland river, Ken- 
tucky. He represented Vermont and Kentucky in Congress, 
and was elected in his old age second delegate to Congress 
from the Territory of Arkansas, although he did not live to 
take his seat. 

Rudyard Kipling has paraphrased, in one of his stories, a 
favorite expression of Colonel Lyon, " By the bulls that re- 
deemed me," into " By the bull that bought me," an impreca- 
tion employed by Lyon to signify his pride instead of shame 
in the circumstance that he was once bought by a Connecticut 
Yankee for a pair of two-year-old stags. He came to America 
as a redemptioner, and in the scarcity of money the bulls be- 
came a part of the consideration for his services. From this 
humble beginning he rose to an honorable station in society, 
and cast the momentous vote in Congress which made Jeffer- 
son President of the United States. John Adams procured the 
passage of the alien and sedition laws chiefly to get rid of 
Lyon, who was tried, convicted and sentenced to four months' 
imprisonment, and to pay a fine of one thousand dollars under 
the odious sedition act. But Lyon proved stronger in his cell, 
like another Hampden, than Adams in the Presidential office. 
The people of Vermont re-elected him to Congress while he 




J. FAIRFAX McLaughlin 



INTRODUCTION XI 

was incarcerated, and he came out of his prison door for a 
triumphal progress to the seat of goyernment, attended by a 
multitude larger than was ever before brought together in the 
Green Mountain State; "the train," says Robinson in his "Ver- 
mont," recently issued in Scudder's series of " American Com- 
monwealths," " extending a distance of twelve miles. With 
half as many," felicitously adds Mr. Robinson, " he might 
boast of a greater following than had passed up the Indian 
Road under any leader since the bloody days of border war- 
fare, when Waubanakee chief or Canadian partisan led their 
marauding horde along the noble river."" 

Such was Matthew Lyon, " loved," says the distinguished 
publicist, Francis Wharton, " as a neighbor, for he was full of 
that chivalrous spirit of generosity which is not a strange in- 
mate of an Irish heart; and valued as a friend, for upon that 
warm temperament had been grafted the fertility of expedients 
belonging to the American pioneer."''' 



New York, March 15, 1900. 



J. F. McL. 



<» Rowland E. Robinson's " Vermont," p. 263. 
" State Trials of the United States," p. 344. 



MATTHEW LYON 

THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
A BIOGRAPHY 



CHAPTER I 

HIS BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD IN WICKLOW — THE GOLDEN BELT 
OF IRELAND — PASSES HIS BOYHOOD IN DUBLIN WHEN 
BURKE, GRATTAN AND SHERIDAN FIGURED THERE — CHARLES 
LUCAS HIS MODEL — SETS OUT FOR AMERICA. 

A/TATTHEW LYON, the Irish-American Hampden, victim 

and destroyer of the first great conspiracy against the 

liberties of the United States, known as the AHen and Sedition 

laws, was born in County Wicklow, the Switzerland of Ireland, 

July 14, 1750- 

This beautiful county adjoins Dublin on the south, and is 
celebrated for its mountain scenery, the once magnificent forest 
of Shillalah, and a landscape of surpassing loveliness. Numer- 
ous villas and spreading demesnes adorn that romantic region 
within its borders known as the Golden Belt. " Were I 
asked," says Sir Jonah Barrington in his description of Wick- 
low, " to exemplify my ideas of rural, animated, cheering land- 
scape, I should say. My friend, travel, visit that narrow region 
which we call the Golden Belt of Ireland."* 



o" Personal Sketches of My Own Times." 



2 MATTHEW LYON 

The scenery of Wicklow has furnished a glowing theme for 
tourists, and a favorite subject for painters and etchers. From 
Spenser in the EHzabethan age, to Tom Moore and Aubrey 
De Vere in our own, poets have celebrated the scenery of the 
county in song and pictured page. Grandeur and beauty meet 
the eye on every side^ from towering Lugnaquilla to the wild 
fastnesses of Glenmalure; from the Round Tower and Saint 
Kevin's Rock to the romantic Dargle and its Lover's Leap. 
Here is the sublime Cascade of Powerscourt; there the Glen 
of the Downs and mystic Luggela. 

Yon bosky dell is none other than Sweet Vale of Avoca, 
■where " the bright waters meet." At Shelton Abbey in 
the Vale of Arklow slept James the Second after his inglo- 
rious flight from the Boyne." And further on amidst the 
enchanting scenery of Wicklow is historic Tinehinch, home 
of the Irish Demosthenes, Henry Grattan. Out of the 
wild Wicklow passes to clasp to his heart once more his 
betrothed Sarah Curran, ere he should quit his native land 
forever, came Robert Emmet to his melancholy fate. In this 
celebrated county was born Matthew Lyon, the future Ameri- 
can statesman, whose life scarcely less adventurous than that 
of a hero of romance will form the subject of the following 
pages. His early boyhood was passed in Dublin. 

Stronghold of the English power, Dublin has ever been the 
focus of British influence in Ireland. It is a remark of 
scholars that in no other place in the Empire is the English 
language spoken with greater purity than at Dublin. Con- 
stant intercourse between the people of Wicklow and those of 
the city has made an impression on Wicklow manners. The 

* Lodge's " Peerage"; and Knight's " Guide to Wicklow," p. 82. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3 

peculiarity of speech, called the brogue, is less observable in 
this county than in any other throughout the Island." The 
picturesque costume of the ancient clans has been replaced like- 
wise by modern English dress. But with these exceptions, 
old customs remain unchanged, and no part of Ireland is more 
strongly marked by the national characteristics than Wick- 
low. 

In spite of the proximity of Dublin, Wicklow was one of the 
last districts of Leinster that was conquered by the English 
invaders. For centuries the present county formed part of 
County Wexford, from which it was separated and made 
shire ground in the time of Queen Elizabeth; but it was not 
until 1605, during the reign of James the First, as we learn 
from the Hibernia Dominicana, that it was raised to the dignity 
of a county.* The clans of the O'Tooles, O'Byrnes, O'Kava- 
naghs,and Walshes, the aboriginal chieftains of Wicklow, hung 
like a black cloud over the neck of Dublin,'' giving and taking 
blows, and when overwhelmed by numbers retreated to their 
strongholds in the mountains, where for centuries they success- 
fully defied the English power. The bitter strains in which 
the early English historians rail against them prove how well 
the men of Wicklow held their own against the inroads of the 
Saxons. Abuse, cheap resource of baffled enemies, is the only 
language they employ in their accounts of these sturdy moun- 
taineers. Even Spenser, the Rubens of English poetry, dis- 
figures the pages of his learned work, " A View of the State 



« Knight's " Guide to Wicklow," Introductory Chapter, p. 8. 
*" Wickloe patrum memoria 1605 comitatus jus induit Equite Arth. 
Chichester pro-rege." Hibernia Dominicana. 
" Spenser's " View of the State of Ireland." 



4 MATTHEW LYON 

of Ireland/' by coarse invective against the wild Irish septs of 
Wicklow. llie truth is, these septs were a brave race strug- 
gling for their own and their countrj-'s liberty. 

Quintilian somewhere says that genius is the heritage of 
mountainous lands, for people there are always free. From 
his mountain progenitors Lyon inherited invincible courage, 
the Celtic love of fun and adventure, and a self-reliance that 
failed him not in the most trying hours of his checkered life. 
From time immemorial Wicklow rejoiced greatly in the 
peculiar Irish institution of fairs. Young Lyon probably at- 
tended some of them, and mingled in the throngs of drover<> 
and frieze-dealers, of peddlers and pipers, among the cattle 
and pigs, when gentr>' and peasantn,-, tithe-proctors and tithe 
payers, seneschals and rapparees, coming together in a body 
and forgetting their differences, made the market towns of 
Wicklow ring with jollity. Wakes and dances were among 
the most popular customs of the people, the ceremony of keep- 
ing the dead company during the night with wassail and song 
and ululations being strictly observed; while persons of all 
ages assembled at the dances, when the young trod measures 
to the music of the bagpipes, and the old, after the manner of 
Asiatics, recounted ancient legends which had been handed 
down for centuries, perhaps without the loss or gain of a single 
sentence.* 

The " retrospective imagination," remarked upon by Mr. 
Lecky, that distinguishes the Irish above all other races, had 
full play in Lyon's native county. Every stranger was told 
wonderful stories of the Phooca, the phantom steed, which had 
been ridden, so ran the tale, by Strongbow and after by Old 



• Sir Jonah Harrington's " Sketches of My Own Times." 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 5 

Noll, when they came into Ireland on mischief bent. Breath- 
ing fire from his nostrils the Phooca still was wont on stormy 
nights to dash down mountain cataracts, and sometimes to 
serve tricks on belated travelers, such as poor little Tommy 
Cuttings, a tailor of Ballymore Eustace, whom he overtook 
one dark night and bore away over the mountains into a fu- 
rious succession of Tam O'Shanter adventures.'' Tommy's 
phantom gallop ever after furnished a winter evening's tale 
along the whole countr>'side from Dublin to the Meeting of 
the Waters. But of all the legends of Wicklow that of Saint 
Kevin and the Lady is the most popular. According to one 
tradition, quaintly preserved in an ancient Wicklow song, the 
Lady was no other than an old hag or witch whose persecutions 
drove the Saint from picturesque Luggela, the spot originally 
chosen for the erection of his celebrated Seven Churches, Ire- 
land's mystical number. But according to another tradition, 
adopted for purposes of poetry by Tom Moore, she was the 
beautiful Kathleen who followed the Saint to his lonely retreat 
at Glendalough only to be hurled from the beetling rock to a 
W'ater\- grave: 

" By that Lake whose gloomy shore 
Skylark never warbles o'er." 

On his visit here in 1825, Sir Walter Scott described the 
Seven Churches of Glendalough, of which the See of Dublin 
was once only a suffragan, as " the inexpressibly singular 
scene of Irish antiquities."" 

In Matthew Lyon's childhood, the Irish peasantr>- though 
almost cured of their love of the Stuarts, as the Young Preten- 



"Mr. and Mrs. Hall's " Scenery of Ireland," article Wicklow. 



6 MATTHEW LYON 

der had found to his cost in 1746, were nevertheless far from 
being reconciled to the House of Hanover. Father O'Leary 
and Bishop Berkeley had kept them away from Culloden whither 
their hearts inclined them, but the broken treaty of Limerick 
had annihilated forever all lingering Irish affection for the 
Kings and government of England, and affords to statesmen 
and rulers of men everywhere an impressive example of what 
Burke finely calls " the ill-husbandry ofc injustice." While 
the vice-regal party in Dublin strove to keep alive loyal recol- 
lections of King William by quaffing off bumpers to " the 
glorious, pious and immortal memory of William the Dutch- 
man," the men of Wicklow answered the Castle toast by 
drinking to " the memory of the Chestnut Horse " that broke 
the neck of the same WiUiam of Orange, and refilling many a 
measure of Drogheda usquebaugh in honor of the avenging 
steed." They h^d not forgotten William's speech on the Irish 
woolen trade, to say nothing of the battle of the Boyne. 

The manners, customs, and highly imaginative legends of 
Lyon's native county exercised an influence in the formation 
of his character, and to some extent afford a key to the numer- 
ous romantic episodes in his after life. 

Of the lives of his parents but few particulars are remem- 
bered. His father's calling is not known, but if he was in the 
insurrection of the evicted cottiers called White Boys, as there 
is some reason to believe, it is probable his occupation was 
that of a small farmer. He must have possessed some means, 
as he placed his son at school in Dublin, and afforded him 
opportunity of acquiring a fair English education, and a little 
knowledge of Latin and Greek. The last surviving daughter 



"Barrington's " Sketches of My Own Times." 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 7 

of Matthew Lyon, the late venerable Mrs. Eliza A. Roe, of 
Illinois, was of opinion that her father's parents were wealthy. 
During Matthew's childhood a famine occurred in Ireland, 
and widespread destitution prevailed among the people, calami- 
ties vividly narrated by Matthew O'Connor and other Irish 
historians of that period. The fact that the father was able in 
those trying times to provide means to educate his son at a 
distance from home is evidence that he was at least in easy 
circumstances. It is the custom in Ireland to place children at 
school at a very early age. Swift was sent when he was six 
years old. Lyon must have been very young, for all accounts 
agree that his father died while he was a small boy, and that 
his school days ended when he was in his thirteenth year. In 
Collins's History of Kentucky, where Colonel Lyon passed hia 
latter years, a sketch of his life is given. After speaking of him 
as "the most remarkable character in southwestern Kentucky," 
the historian refers to his parentage and says: "His father, 
while Matthew was a small boy, engaged in a conspiracy 
against the British Crown, for which he was tried, condemned 
and executed. His widow soon married; and Matthew, at the 
age of nineteen, fled from the cruelty of a step-father to 
America."" 

But Matthew's age at the time of his emigration is not cor- 
rectly stated by Mr. Collins. At thirteen, after leaving school, 
he was placed in a Dublin printing office, or newspaper office, 
to learn the trades of printer and book-binder. He worked 
here about two years. If the father suffered capital punish- 
ment, the early days of his sensitive, high-strung son were no 
doubt embittered, and this tragedy, reported by so respectable 



"Collins's " History of Kentucky," Vol. II, p. 491. 



8 MATTHEW LYON 

an authority as Collins, the Kentucky historian, who may have 
learned of it directly or through others from Colonel Lyon him- 
self, deserves more than passing reference in a memoir of the 
son's life. If the elder Lyon was put to death for White Boy ism, 
as were so many of his innocent countrymen, a sad motive for 
the early exile of his son may be found in that tragedy. During 
the eighteenth century confiscation in Ireland usually went 
hand in hand with the doom of death. Upon the execution of 
the father, his family probably at the same time was reduced to 
poverty. 

About the middle of the eighteenth century several insurrec- 
tions occurred in various parts of Ireland. It is the opinion 
of some writers, as said above, that the elder Lyon was a Wick- 
low farmer. If so, the uprising of the White Boys was the 
one, if any, in which he probably took part. Insurrections 
among the manufacturing classes of the North of Ireland were 
frequent about that time, as they had been in the earlier part 
of the century. 

The chief commercial dependence of the country, if not the 
sole one, was the woolen trade. By an act of the British Par- 
liament, passed in 1699, and described by the impartial his- 
torian Lecky as one of "crushing and unprecedented severity," 
the export of the Irish woolen manufactures, not only to Eng- 
land but to all other countries, was absolutely prohibited. 
'■ The effects of this measure," says Lecky, " were ter- 
rible, almost beyond conception. The main industry of the 
country was at a blow completely and irretrievably annihilated. 
A vast population was thrown into a condition of utter destitu- 
tion."«» 



''Lecky's " Leaders of Irish Opinion." 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 9 

Skilled labor fled the country in despair, for its main interest 
was swept away, and it found a more congenial field for its 
enterprise in Germany, France and Spain. The western and 
southern districts of Ireland were almost depopulated, and 
emigration to America, the present United States, which with 
occasional interruptions has continued in an ever-increasing 
stream from that day to the present, then for the first time was 
systematically begun. The Irish of Ulster came over in 1728, 
and their posterity are to be found chiefly in Pennsylvania and 
in the Southern States — in Virginia, West Virginia and Ken- 
tucky, and as far down as the Carolinas and Georgia, They 
now call them Scotch-Irish, but why Scotch is not clear. 
Their progenitors came from the province of Ulster, Ireland, 
and were described as Irishmen, not Scotch-Irishmen, by the 
historians of their own age. In the accounts written by them- 
selves which have been preserved they are described simply as 
Irishmen, without any Scotch, English or other prefix or com- 
pound. The new-fangled name, propitiatory coinage of a later 
day, had not then been invented. They had no apologies to 
oflfer for being Irishmen. The poet's burning imprecation, 
beginning with the words, " Lives there a man with soul so 
dead," never could be applied to them. Of this stock were An- 
drew Jackson, John C. Calhoun and Stonewall Jackson. In the 
appended letter Mr. Calhoun described himself and his father. 
Recent writers may take a useful hint from this letter, never 
hitherto published, and in which the distinguished writer, it 
will be observed, describes his father, not as many others who 
have written about him have done by employing the mixed 
race words Scotch-Irish, but simply and truly as an Irish 
emigrant. 



10 MATTHEW LYON 

Letter of John C. Calhoun upon becoming a member of the 
Irish Emigrant Society of New York: 

" Senate Chamber, 

"Washington, D. C, 

" 13th September, 1841. 
" Dear Sir. — I have been so much engaged in the discharge of my 
public duties that I have been compelled to neglect almost everything 
else for the past few weeks, which I hope will be a sufficient apology 
for not answering at an earlier date your letter of 13th August 

" I have ever taken pride in my Irish descent. My father, Patrick 
Calhoun, was a native of Donegal county. His father emigrated when 
he was a child. As a son of an emigrant I cheerfully join your 
Society. Its object does honor to its founders. I enclose five dollars 
which the Society will please regard as my annual subscription for the 
next five years. With great respect, 

" Yours, etc., 

"JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
" To the Secretary Irish Emigrant Society." 

If Mr. Calhoun always took pride in his Irish descent, Gen- 
eral Jackson was not behind him in devotion to the Celtic 
race. When he was President nearly all his personal attend- 
ants were natives of Ireland, and he would reason with them, 
and advise and exhort them as though they were members of 
his own family. In his " Irish Settlers in America" (p. 119) 
the brilliant Thomas D'Arcy McGee relates the following 
anecdotes of Jackson's partiality for persons of his own race: 
" Many instances of his thoughtfulness in this regard have 
been related to us by living witnesses of the facts. We have 
perused a most kind and characteristic letter from the General 
to Mr. Maher, the public gardener at Washington, on the death 
of his children. It is conceived in the most fraternal and cor- 
dial spirit of sympathy. Jackson's man-servant, Jemmy 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS II 

O'Neil, alas! no more, was once in the circle of our acquaint- 
ance. Before the days of Father Mathew, poor Jemmy was 
given to sacrifice too freely to Bacchus, and on those occasions 
assumed rather a troublesome control over all visitors and 
dwellers in the White House. After many complaints, Jack- 
son decided to dismiss him, and sent for him accordingly. 

Jackson — Jemmy, you and I must part. 

Jemmy — Why so. General? 

Jackson — Every one complains of you. 

Jemmy — ^And do you believe themi, General? 

Jackson — Of course, what every one says must be true. 

Jemmy — Well now, General, I've heard twice as much said 
against you, and I never would believe a word of it. (Exit 
Jackson.)" 

Chronic famine in a land of plenty was the outcome of 
England's inhuman policy in Ireland. Absentee landlords 
achieved the rest. Rack-rents and tithes drained the people of 
their life-blood. At that time the Irish peasantry drew their 
subsistence wholly from tillage. But in 1761 the cattle dis- 
ease, breaking out in Holstein and spreading to Holland, soon 
made its appearance in England. It proved extremely fatal to 
homed cattle. The price of beef, butter and cheese rose enor- 
mously. The cupidity of speculators was aroused. Ireland 
with its impoverished tenantry offered an alluring field for their 
greed. Alien speculators pointed out to the Irish landlords 
the depression in all agricultural pursuits except those con- 
nected with cattle raising. These speculators urged the land- 
lords to dispossess the tenants summarily. Being merely 
tenants at will, immediate eviction was practicable. The land- 
lord class arrayed itself solidly against the peasantry, and an 



12 MATTHEW LYON 

agricultural revolution followed. The cottiers were ruthlessly 
driven out, tillage was abandoned, and the land in immense 
tracts leased to wealthy monopolists for grazing purposes. 
These " land pirates," as they were called by the evicted cot- 
tiers, required few hands to feed their cattle. Their pay-rolls 
were consequently small, and they could well afford to bribe 
the landlords with larger rents than the peasants were able to 
pay, and ejectment of the small farmers became almost uni- 
versal. The standing peasants finally sought shelter in the 
towns, begging their bread from door to door when no longer 
permitted to earn it. " The only piteous resource of the 
affluent," says Plowden in his History of Ireland, " was to ship 
off as many as would emigrate to seek maintenance or death 
in foreign climes." Dean Swift's sarcasm about cultivating 
cattle by banishing men was being terribly fulfilled. 

But while Plowden ascribes the emigration of 1762, and the 
years immediately following, to the bounty of the " affluent," 
Matthew O'Connor, who lived at that period, and ranks high 
as a historian, does not so state it. " No resource," says this 
careful writer, " remained to the peasantr)^ but emigration. 
The few who had means sought an asylum in the American 
plantations; such as remained were allowed generally an acre 
of ground for the support of their families, and commonage 
for a cow, but at rents the most exorbitant." And thus the 
second exodus to America, this time not from Ulster, but from 
Connaught, Leinster, and Munster, began in 1762 and con- 
tinued for some years. In this wave came Matthew Lyon to 
seek his fortunes in the New World. 

Having brought their victims to despair the landlords and 
graziers attempted to shift the blame to others, and to excite 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I3 

religious animosities between Catholics and Protestants. The 
tithe proctors of the church establishment, always inexorable 
in the exaction of tribute, aflforded a ready scape-goat. The 
nick-name of " tithe-mongers " was invented for them by the 
real authors of Irish misery, whose benevolent rapacity would 
not admit of partnership in the work of spoliation. And so 
the landlords inveighed against the tithe-mongers until agra- 
rian violence on the part of the White Boys occurred, when the 
crafty instigators of these riots called upon government to 
suppress an insurrection caused by their own inhumanity and 
greed. It is true that the White Boys were recruited largely 
from the ranks of the Catholics, because the peasants were 
almost universally Catholics ; but it is equally true that the con- 
temporaneous revolts in Ulster of the Peep-of-Day Boys, the 
Oak Boys, and the Hearts of Steel Boys were composed mainly 
of Protestants. Neither religion nor politics had anything to 
do with these outbreaks. Both Catholics and Protestants 
were starved into insurrection, the former by the rapacity of 
landlords and graziers, and" the latter by the infamous non- 
exportation act of King William's Parliament in 1699. The 
government appointed a commission of eminent men in 1762 
to inquire into the causes and circumstances of the revolt of 
the White Boys. Its members were distinguished for zeal as 
Protestants and abiHty as lawyers. In their report they said: 
" That the authors of these riots consisted indiscriminately of 
persons of different persuasions, and that no marks of disaffec- 
tion to his Majesty's person or government appeared in any of 
these people."" The truth of this report was attested by the 



oPIowden's " History of Ireland," Vol. II, p. 138. 



14 MATTHEW LYON 

judges of the Munster Circuit, and by the Lord-Chief-Justice 
of the Common Pleas, the upright Sir Richard Aston.** 

But the mailed hand was uplifted, and the innocent not 
less than the guilty were made to feel its vengeance. Num- 
bers of the best people in Ireland were accused and tried on a 
charge of White-Boyism, and judicially murdered upon the 
suborned testimony of spies and informers." 

It is not at all improbable that the father of Matthew Lyon 
lost both his estate and life during the uprising of the White 
Boys which followed the wholesale eviction of the peasantry 
from their farms. But in the estimation of those conversant 
in the Irish State Trials of the blood-stained eighteenth cen- 
tury, such a death will not militate against the character of the 
elder Lyon, but rather strengthen the opinion that he was a 
worthy and brave man who perished at the hands of those 
who could not subdue him to their purposes. 

Mr. Collins, it will be observed, states that Matthew Lyon's 
mother was twice married. Matthew often spoke of her in 
after years with tender aflection, and of the tears he shed at 
leaving her. He once alluded to her in a speech in Congress. 
" He had no pretensions/' he said, " to high blood, though he 
thought he had as good blood as any of them, as he was bom 
of a fine, hale, healthy woman."" If his mother married again, 
and was still living when her son had become a prosperous 
man in Vermont, her second marriage would explain her con- 
tinued residence in Ireland. The handsome conduct of Mat- 
thew afterwards in the case of five of the children of his 



'^Ibid, " History of Ireland," Vol. II, p. 139. 
*» Ibid, " History of Ireland," Vol. II, p. 140. 
"'Annals of Congress, 1797. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I5 

deceased sister, Mrs, Edwards, is evidence enough of what he 
would have done for his mother had she needed his assistance, 
or been free to join him in America. She remained in Ireland, 
but Matthew always remembered and spoke of his mother with 
reverence and affection. His sister lived in Dublin and was 
the wife of a Mr. Edwards, captain of an Irish merchantman. 
Of this marriage there were said to be as many as twenty 
children.'* Captain Edwards finally lost his life by shipwreck, 
and left his family destitute. His widow did not long survive 
him. " My aunt died broken hearted/' said Mrs. Roe, in a 
letter to the writer of this memoir containing some recollec- 
tions of her father's family. After his removal to Kentucky, 
and while he was a representative at Washington from that 
State, Matthew Lyon sent to Ireland for the five youngest 
children of this deceased sister, two sons and three daughters, 
and received them with open arms into his American home. 
The care and affection he bestowed on his own children were 
extended by the generous and warm-hearted uncle to the new- 
comers. " They made their home at my father's," says Mrs. 
Roe, " until they were men and women. The two youngest 
were married at my father's, and he did well by them."* 

Whether in consequence of his father's reported execution, 
his mother's second marriage, or the poverty of the family, 
we have seen that young Matthew was taken from school and 
put in a Dublin printing ofBce at the age of thirteen. Here he 
learned the trades of printer and book-binder, which afterwards 
proved of great advantage to him in America. Many dis- 
tinguished men have begun their careers at the printing case. 
But it is a misfortune for a promising boy to be cut ofif at that 



^Mrs. Roe's letter to author. 



l6 MATTHEW LYON 

age from academic training. He may have mastered arithme- 
tic and grammar rules, and obtained a smattering of algebra 
and the classics, but the flavor of learning does not come at 
thirteen, nor, except rarely, correct taste and scholarly disci- 
pline. No matter how propitious his subsequent career may 
prove, without early education a man of great natural endow- 
ments is like Hercules without his club. His best efforts will 
be disfigured more or less by the early defect. Still there are 
quaHfications to the rule, for it is the part of pedantry to lean 
to the side of names and forms, and forget reality and sub- 
stance. The greatest leaders, such as Marlborough and 
Washington and Jackson, have not been grammarians and rhet- 
oricians. Matthew Lyon obtained an academic foundation 
in a city famous for its scholars, and pre-eminent as a literary 
and intellectual center; but he had no more. For the rest he 
was entirely a self-educated man. His exploits in after life 
prove that he caught the spirit of his early surroundings. Had 
he received a liberal education, his fine properties of mind 
might have carried him into the highest walks of literature 
and statesmanship, together with several other young Dub- 
liners, Burke, Sheridan and Grattan among the number, who 
were his youthful contemporaries, and peradventure daily 
jostled him in the streets in passing and repassing with him to 
their several pursuits. It is quite possible that some of these 
ingenious youths may have been his playmates or friends. A 
very Brundusium for its constellation of wits was Dublin at 
that day. Young Edmund Burke was already at man's estate, 
and an attache in the official family of the Lord-Lieutenant. 
But Grattan was only four years the senior of Lyon, and Sheri- 
dan was one year his junior. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I7 

Burke went to England to take his place as the greatest 
master of the English language since Shakespeare. Sheridan 
soon followed, and made the wonderful speech for down- 
trodden humanity in India, when, according to Byron, " van- 
quished Senates trembled as they praised," Burke declared 
of this speech of Sheridan that it was " the most astonishing 
effort of eloquence, argument and wit united of which there 
was any record or tradition." Grattan, the Irish Demosthenes, 
remained behind to woo back freedom to his beloved Ireland 
for a bright, brief era, and to come forth at length from Tine- 
hinch, his romantic seat in Wicklow, and proclaim a Bill of 
Rights from College Green in the presence of a hundred thou- 
sand Irish soldiers, upon whose guns were inscribed these elo- 
quent words — "Free Trade or This." Matthew Lyon crossed 
the seas to hold the balance of power between the Puritans and 
Cavaliers of America in the most momentous civic contest of 
the nineteenth century, the presidential election of 1801, the 
great formative era, and by his vote in the House of Repre- 
sentatives to decide it in favor of Thomas Jefferson. 

Young as he was when he left his native land, the main- 
springs of his character are to be sought for there. The 
tyranny which he loathed, for a father was probably its victim^ 
and the efforts of his countrymen to break it, which he must 
have witnessed, should be kept distinctly in view by the his- 
torical student in tracing the growth of his mind, and the 
development of his almost fanatical democratic spirit. He 
was born in the middle of the eighteenth century, the blackest 
hour of Ireland's multiplied centuries of the penal laws. But 
principles had been enunciated by Molyneux, seed sown by 
Swift, arguments urged by O'Leary, the Irish Chrysostom, 



l8 MATTHEW LYON 

and events were then transpiring directed by the fiery energfy 
of Dr. Charles Lucas, which were to make the blackest hour 
the precursor of dawn. The revolution of 1688 had given 
liberty to Englishmen, yet it was but a niggardly liberty after 
all, for it had found Irishmen in chains, and it had pinned them 
down in a Gibeonite bondage, even worse than Ireland, the 
martyr nation of the world, had yet endured in its whole 
history. 

The Plantagenets and Tudors confiscated the estates of the 
Irish nobility, but the haughty Saxon and Anglo-Norman 
barons having plundered the Celtic princes and chieftains, and 
exiled such of them as were not killed in battle, were content 
to stop there, and disdained to make war on the common peo- 
ple, the great body of the Irish race. They settled down in 
Ireland, and the laboring classes were not seriously disturbed. 
For the Irish people it was a change of masters. Clanship was 
uprooted, and feudalism to a certain extent introduced. True, 
before these changes could be effected, everything was carried 
by the sword, or when that proved unavailing against the 
obstinate valor of the Irish, the stranger's object was attained 
by treachery and corrupt appliances. The blood of some of 
the best men that ever adorned the history of Ireland was shed, 
martyrs in the highest sense; but it was the blood of nobility 
and clergy, the fiower of the flock but not the flock itself, the 
great and not the many, that fell in the fierce onslaught of the 
Saxons. 

The Stuart dynasty, for which the Irish people felt so strange 
an infatuation, heroic in its devotion, but always basely 
requited, entailed upon Irelaod infinitely more mischief than 
Plantagenets and Lancasters and Tudors combined. A swarm 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I9 

of thrifty Scotchmen followed James the First into England, 
but the English place-hunters were more than a match for 
them, and the callous James, who had allowed his royal mother 
to perish on the block without lifting a finger to save her, in 
order now to provide for his countrymen, sent them into Ire- 
land to fatten there on the miseries of the people. Upon the 
humble homes of the poor, and not upon the possessions of the 
upper classes, the Scotch adventurers fixed hungry eyes, thus 
reversing the example of the earlier and prouder invaders. To 
promote the schemes of his countrymen in Ireland, James the 
First invented the notorious plan for universal plunder, known 
as the " Commission for the investigation of defective titles." 
Under the Irish clan system there were no title-deeds to real 
estate. The Irish families held their lands by prescription or 
immemorial possession. The Irish had held these lands for 
centuries. Hence when James the First required them on 
pain of forfeiture to produce title-deeds, which he well knew 
they did not possess, he had invented the most tremendous 
engine of confiscation ever heard of in the civilized world. 
The people saw with horror the abyss into which their inheri- 
tance was about to be engulfed. The first commission of 
James reported three hundred and eighty-five thousand acres 
in Leinster alone as " discovered; " that is to say, in the judg- 
ment of the commission the " titles were not such as ought to 
stand in the way of his Majesty's designs."" 

Under Charles the First, the remorseless Strafiford carried 
to still greater excess this monstrous scheme of spoliation ; and 
it reached its utmost limits in the hands of Cromwell's parlia- 



« Thebaud's " Irish Race, Past and Present." 



20 MATTHEW LYON 

mentary commissioners. But to do Cromwell justice, he did 
not contrive this engine of conBscation, but found it ready to 
his hand as it had been left by the Stuarts. The effects of 
Cromwell's policy in Ireland have been well summed up in a 
single sentence by Villemain in his " Histoire de Cromwell:'' 
" Ireland became a desert which the few remaining inhabitants 
described by the mournful saying: 'There was not water 
enough to drown a man, not wood enough to hang him, not 
earth enough to bury him.' " Four-fifths of the Irish nation 
were deprived of their property by Cromwell because of their 
invincible loyalty to Charles the Firsts whose head he had cut 
oflf; and incredible as it may appear, the son of Charles the 
First ratified that spoliation of his father's faithful subjects by 
the troopers of his father's executioner. 

But it remained for William of Orange and Queen Anne 
and the three first Georges to add a new calamity to all those 
that had preceded it, for during their reigns the spectacle was 
presented, as it has been often since, of a whole people starving 
to death in the midst of plenty, and in time of profound peace. 
The eighteenth was by bad eminence the century of the penal 
laws. After the treaty of Limerick had been broken, the Irish 
Parliament devised every conceivable scheme of persecution, 
outrage, and oppression against the great body of the Irish 
people. Religious fanaticism was rampant. The English Par- 
liament hating Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics impar- 
tially, passed laws which utterly crushed the trade of Ireland. 
Thereafter began those periodical famines which still continue 
to visit that unhappy country. 

The Irish Parliament in Matthew Lyon's childhood was 
seething in corruption, and did not in any sense represent the 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 21 



people. Of its three hundred members, two hundred and 
sixteen were what were called nomination or rotten-borough 
members, and the Catholics, who composed the vast majority 
of the whole population, were excluded from representation 
both directly and indirectly, without seats and without votes;" 
nevertheless through this polluted channel the first signs of 
life began to enter, the first manifestations of an independent 
spirit began now to be discerned. Against the degradation of 
the Parliament of Ireland^ and its abject subservience under 
Poyning's Law to the English Parliament, one great voice had 
been lifted up. Molyneux, of Trinity College, Dublin, the 
friend of Locke, and a man of profound learning, had published 
so long before as 1698 his celebrated work " The Case of Ire- 
land," in which, by an exhaustive and unanswerable appeal to 
history, he proved that the Parliament of Ireland had naturally 
and anciently all the prerogatives in Ireland which the English 
Parliament possessed in England. But at the time he wrote 
public spirit was dead, and the heart of the nation was well 
nigh broken by oppression. The English government ordered 
his book to be burned by the common hangman, and the effect 
of that noble utterance for the time being was lost on Ireland. 
But not forever. 

Dean Swift, with consummate skill, took up the argument a 
few years after, and proclaimed his absolute faith in the doc- 
trines of Molyneux, and his allegiance, not to the King of 
England, but to the King of Ireland. By his celebrated 
Drapier's Letters the incomparable Dean of St. Patrick's re- 
vived the spirit of nationality throughout the length and 

o Lecky's " Leaders of Irish Opinion." 



22 MATTHEW LYON 

breadth of Ireland. In describing the effect of Swift's Dra- 
pier's Letters, the eloquent Lecky exclaims, " There is no more 
momentous epoch in the history of a nation than that in which 
the voice of the people has first spoken, and spoken with suc- 
cess. It marks the transition from an age of semi-barbarism 
to an age of civilization, from the government of force to the 
government of opinion. Before this time rebellion was the 
natural issue of every patriotic effort in Ireland. Since then 
rebellion has been an anachronism and a mistake. The age of 
Desmond and O'Neil had passed. The age of Grattan and 
O'Connell had begun. "'^ 

But Swift's death in 1747 left Ireland without a leader. The 
national spirit he had aroused and the public opinion he had 
created were on the point of extinguishment, when the patriot, 
Charles Lucas, appeared in the Irish Parliament, and not only 
rallied the people once more, but directed their energies into 
political channels. Lucas was the first member of the Irish 
Parliament during the eighteenth century who boldly grounded 
himself on Molyneux and Swift, and adopted the policy of 
agitation as a substiute for force. The many-voiced free press, 
educator for good or evil, the Archimedean lever of modern 
society, was first introduced in the Irish capital by Lucas, who 
founded the celebrated newspaper, the " Dublin Freeman's 
Journal," in which he rallied the drooping energies of his 
countrymen, and organized the lines of battle which Grattan 
and the Volunteers afterwards so magnificently waged in 1782. 
In addition to a courage never surpassed, this Irish patriot 
possessed that wonderful power of electrifying the hearts of 
the people which within a few years after was to display itself so 

o Lecky's " Leaders of Irish Opinion." 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 23 

marvellously in America in the persons of Patrick Henry and 
James Otis. 

It was during Matthew Lyon's boyhood that Charles Lucas 
figured in Dublin. In those early days in the art of printing, 
when only the hand press was in use, the printer who set the 
type also folded papers, and it was thus that Lyon learned the 
business of bookbinding in conjunction with typesetting. In 
the present age the steam-press has driven the bindery out of 
the printing office and made it a separate trade. It is possible 
that Lyon was employed by Lucas and learned to set type, 
fold papers and bind books in the office of the " Freeman's 
Journal." Certainly there are enough points of resemblance in 
the careers of the two men to justify the opinion that Matthew 
Lyon selected his countryman, Charles Lucas, as a model. 
They both lived in Dublin at the same time, perhaps were in 
the same office, and certainly were in the same business. 
Lucas was the idol of the people. Even the Catholics, whose 
religion he opposed, regarded him as another Swift, and as in 
the case of Swift, forgot his prejudices against their faith in 
admiration of his shining patriotism. Lucas delighted to bring 
forward clever Irish youths. The style of the " Freeman's 
Journal " was intensely democratic, and its leaders, and notably 
its essays called " Barratariana," were hurled with fiery invec- 
tive against the Vice-Regal government and the Castle or 
aristocratic party. When Lyon embarked in politics in Ver- 
mont he established, in spite of almost incredible obstacles, 
the "Farmer's Library," a newspaper which he modeled on the 
style of the Dublin "Freeman's Journal." And afterwards, when 
a candidate for Congress, in 1798, he began the publication of 
a semi-monthly magazine whose name sufficiently denoted its 



24 MATTHEW LYON 

democratic character, — " The Scourge of Aristocracy." The 
Irish Parliament of George the Second, against whose contin- 
uance without a return to the people for a new election Lucas 
struggled so hard^ endured without prorogation during no less 
than thirty-three years. Lucas denounced its corruptions, and 
the slavishness to the Castle of its members so pointedly and so 
personally that the grand jury of Dublin, a packed body, 
ordered his addresses to be burned, and the Parliament in 1749, 
under orders from the Castle, proclaimed him an enemy to his 
country, and issued an order for his arrest. When Matthew 
Lyon took his seat in the Congress of the United States his 
first speech was a vigorous denunciation of the courtly pro- 
cessions through the streets of Philadelphia on the part of 
members of Congress to submit their answer to the President's 
speech. He denounced the custom as a slavish aping of the 
manners of royalty, undemocratic and un-American. Lyon 
was the first, indeed the only man at that day to lift his voice 
against these Congressional street pageants of the Federalists. 
Afterwards Jefferson, when he became President, sternly dis- 
countenanced the ceremony, and it was abolished. Lyon's 
boldness and defiance of power, constantly encroaching upon 
the rights of the people, excited the alarm and enmity of the 
friends of the President in Congress, who denounced him as 
an enemy of the country. When Lyon, in a temperate but fear- 
less letter^ exposed the abuses of the executive office, an order 
for his arrest was issued by virtue of an act of Congress, pre- 
cisely as an order for the arrest of Dr. Lucas had been issued 
before by virtue of an act of Parliament. Both Lucas and 
Lyon were enthusiastic admirers of Dr. Franklin. Lyon 
placed his son James at Philadelphia under the special charge 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 25' 

and direction of the illustrious philosopher. In 1771 Franklin 
made the tour of Ireland^ and during his sojourn in Dublin 
resided at the private residence of Dr. Lucas as the guest of the 
•Irish patriot. An interesting letter or fragment of one has 
been preserved which was written by Dr. Franklin to his dis- 
tinguished friend Thomas Gushing, of Boston, shortly after 
this visit. " Before leaving Ireland," said Franklin, " I must 
mention that being desirous of seeing the principal patriots 
there, I stayed till the opening of their Parhament. I found 
them disposed to be friends of America, in which I endeavored 
to confirm them, with the expectation that our growing weight 
might in time be thrown in their scale, and by joining our in- 
terests with theirs, a more equitable treatment from this nation 
might be obtained for them as well as for us. There are many 
brave spirits among them. The gentry are a very sensible, 
pohte and friendly people. Their Parhament makes a most 
respectable figure, with a number of very good speakers in both 
parties, and able men of business. And I must not omit 
acquainting you that, it being a standing rule to admit mem- 
bers of the English Parliament to sit (though they do not vote) 
in the House among the members, while others are only ad- 
mitted into the gallery, my fellow-traveler being an English 
member,*^ was accordingly admitted as such. But I supposed 
I must go to the gallery, when the Speaker stood up and 
acquainted the House that he understood there was in town 
an American gentleman of (as he was pleased to say) distin- 
guished character and merit, a member or delegate of some of 
the Parliaments of that country, who was desirous of being 



o Mr. Jackson, M. P. 



26 MATTHEW LYON 

present at the debates of the House; that there was a rule of 
the House for admitting members of EngHsh ParUaments, and 
that he supposed the House would consider the American 
Asscmbhes as Enghsh ParHaments; but as this was the first 
instance^ he had chosen not to give any order in it without 
receiving their directions. On the question the House gave a 
loud, unanimous Ay, when two members came to me without 
the bar— "« 

A biography of Dr. Franklin, one of the first ever published 
in America, was issued out of the printing office of Matthew 
Lyon at Fair Haven, Vermont, and it is probable that it was 
written by Colonel Lyon himself. He had perhaps been taught 
to love Franklin by Lucas. The parallel may be traced one 
step further. 

Lucas was driven out of Ireland by the government or 
English party, but lived to come back, and so great was his 
popularity that he was returned by the electors of Dublin to 
the Irish Parliament. Lyon was driven out of New England 
by the John Adams or Federal party, and went to make his 
home in Kentucky, for, in spite of many differences of charac- 
ter, the Irish and the Cavaliers have always foregathered as 
friends. So great became his popularity, he was elected again 
to Congress by the people of Kentucky, as he had been by the 
gallant people of Vermont while a State prisoner in the Ver- 
gennes jail. " If I have seen further than others," was the 
remark of Sir Isaac Newton, " it was by standing on the 



« The rest of the letter is lost. Spark's " Works of Benjamin 
Franklin," Vol. VII, pp. 557-8. See also " Franklin's Correspon- 
dence." 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 2/ 

shoulders of giants." When in 1797 Lyon entered a freeman's 
protest against the monarchical ceremony of a whole Congress 
packing through the streets to present a courtly address to the 
President, not another member of Congress stood up to sustain 
him. If, like Sir Isaac Newton, he saw further than others, 
as the event proved, it was because he had stood in his youth 
on the shoulders of giants — of Molyneux and Swift, of Lucas 
and Flood, of Burke and O'Leary. The classical school and 
Dublin printing-case proved of inestimable advantage to the 
Wicklow boy. 

In his old age Matthew Lyon wrote an autobiography, which 
no doubt contained a full account of his parentage and early 
life. For some years after his death it was preserved at his 
homestead in Kentucky. Tlie writer has addressed inquiries 
concerning this autobiography, which would prove of such 
value in the preparation of the present biography, to many of the 
descendants of Colonel Lyon, and with the utmost diligence 
has followed every clue that might lead to its discovery, but it 
is to be feared it has been unfortunately lost. His daughter, 
Mrs. Roe, had never heard of it. At least one person now 
living had read it, a grandson of Colonel Lyon, Matthew S. 
Lyon, of Evansville, Indiana.'^ In a letter to the writer, dated 
April 18, 1 881, this gentleman said: 

"My grandfather. Col. M. Lyon, left an unfinished autobiog- 
raphy, which by some inadvertence was very much mutilated 
by mice in the attic, where it had been stored away, and which 



flAt the time of writing these words the author knew that Mr. Mat- 
thew S. Lyon was living. But he has since died. He is said to have 
been an agreeable and accomplished gentleman. His death occurred 
in Union County, Ky., in the year 1891. 



28 MATTHEW LYON 

I tried in my boyhood to iriVe something out of, but which I 
gave up in despair, not being able from my personal knowledge 
to piece out the breaks in it. Some years later the manuscript 
was taken by a relative of his (Mason R. Lyon, I think) to 
Alabama. If I am not mistaken this Lyon was engaged in 
publishing a newspaper, but its name or location I am unable 
to give you. I think he gave up the idea of restoring it him- 
self, as I have never heard anything of him or it since, and 
suppose it is long since lost or destroyed. 

" Of my grandfather's history," added this gentleman. " I 
can give you only a few meagre facts, which perhaps are 
already known to you. He was born in Wicklow county, Ire- 
land, I cannot give you the date, and came to this country at 
thirteen years of age. I remember that fact because connected 
with it he states one quite remarkable, that at that age he was 
a fair Latin and Greek scholar, and quite proficient in his 
trade, a printer and bookbinder."** 

This is an important letter, and entitled to great weight, for 
the writer of it had seen the autobiography of his grandfather, 
and what he says in regard to it is in the nature of primary 
evidence. The mistake he makes respecting his grandfather's 
age when he emigrated to America is a very natural one. All 
the historical writers who have given an account of Matthew 
Lyon have fallen into the same error. Wharton in his " State 
Trials of the United States/' Lossing, Drake, and Collins in 
their historical and biographical writings, Pliny White in his 
address before the Vermont Historical Society, Charles Lan- 
man and Ben Perley Poore in their biographical dictionaries 



fl Letter of Matthew S. Lyon to author. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 29 

of Congressmen, and the writer of the article on Matthew Lyon 
in "Appleton's Cyclopedia;" all, except Collins, state that he 
was born in 1746, and came to this country at thirteen. Col- 
lins makes him still older, nineteen at the time of his emigra- 
tion. The grandson probably had read the sketches of some 
of these authors, and their statements may have confused his 
recollection of what his grandfather himself must have written 
on the subject. The venerable Mrs. Roe, the last survivor of 
Matthew Lyon's immediate family, possessed knowledge more 
nearly approaching accuracy than that of the others, for she 
says in a letter to the author, "My father came to this country 
when he was fourteen years old." After a very careful investi- 
gation of every attainable authority in relation to Colonel 
Lyon's age, including the Colonel's own testimony on the 
point, the present writer is able to state his age exactly, as well 
as the year of his departure from Ireland for America. 

Matthew Lyon was born July 14, 1750, and emigrated from 
Ireland in 1765, when he was in the fifteenth year of his age. 
If at thirteen, as stated in his autobiography, according to his 
grandson's recollection of it, he was a fair Latin and Greek 
scholar, the explanation is that this w^as the ag'e when he left 
school, and that the business of printing' and bookbinding 
came afterwards^ between his thirteenth year, when his school- 
days ceased, and his fifteenth year, when he departed for 
America. Interesting particulars in relation to Colonel Lyon's 
early life lie buried away in several town and county histories 
of Connecticut, his first home in this country. Some of these 
books are now very scarce, while others are out of print and 
practically inaccessible. Morris's "Statistical Account, etc., of 



30 MATTHEW LYON 

Litchfield County," published in the early part of this century, 
cannot now be procured, while WoodrufT's "History of the Town 
of Litchfield" (1845), and Kilbourne's "Biographical History 
of Litchfield County" (1851), are rarely to be met with, even 
in the libraries of Connecticut antiquarians. Yet in each of 
those books is contained an account of Matthew Lyon, of his 
youth and first days in America. It has been the author's 
good fortune to procure Woodruff's and Kilbourne's volumes. 
These, with Cothren's "History of Ancient Woodbury," and two 
or three other local chronicles of Connecticut, have served to 
supply the hitherto missing links in the first ten years of Lyon's 
life in America, from the time he left Dublin to his settlement in 
Vermont. The extraordinary care which the people of New 
iEngland bestow on genealogies, and town and county histories, 
is worthy of all praise, and while it furnishes testimony of the 
reverence in which they hold their ancestors, it is evidence also 
of the superior literary taste which prevails in that section of 
the American Union. Future historians will turn to these 
local chronicles as mines fraught with rich materials, for the 
ultimate value of facts is never apparent to the casual eye, but 
is only developed by time and a studious comparison of the ele- 
ments of history. Dates, names, marriages, funerals, creeds, 
education, sports, customs, apparel, and the thousand com- 
plexional habits and peculiarities of a people, whether they 
appear trifling or grave, important or insignificant, cannot be 
weighed and appreciated fully by one generation, but require 
many succeeding generations to bring out and make manifest 
their intrinsic and relative grade in the scale of great and 
small, of durable or transitory things. The minute and ap- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3 1 

pareiitly trivial details contained in these unpretentious books 
will always be a joy and well-spring of delight to the historical 
and critical scholars of the next age. 

Thanks to these old chroniclers, the present writer has been 
enabled to accompany Matthew Lyon from the ship that bore 
the youthful emigrant to these shores, to trace his steps from 
New York to his first home in Connecticut, from that place to 
his second home in the same Colony, and thence across the 
Green Mountains to the Valley of Lake Champlain. The light 
shed upon these early events in his career in America by Con- 
necticut writers makes lucid his own otherwise obscure and 
hasty statement in respect to the same period which afterwards 
in 1798 he uttered on the floor of Congress. In that statement 
Colonel Lyon declared that he had lived during the preceding 
twenty-four years in Vermont, and that prior to his settlement 
there he had lived for ten years, from his fifteenth to his 
twenty-fifth year, in the colony of Connecticut, his first home 
in America. 

With these threads of his biography in hand, the hitherto 
disputed question of his age is set at rest, and the exact time 
of his coming to America is fixed. After having solved this 
difficulty by aid of old records, the present writer was fortunate 
.enough to have his conclusions completely verified by the 
'written testimony of Matthew Lyon himself and his own wife, 
contained in his family record. This was furnished by Mr. F. 
A. Wilson, a lawyer of Eddyville, Kentucky, the husband of a 
great-granddaughter of Colonel Lyon. 

■Mr. Wilson's note is as follows: 



32 MATTHEW LYON 

" Eddyville, Kentucky, 

" May 9th, 1881. 
" Dear Sir. — I was handed this morning part of the family record of 
Col. Matthew Lyon, said to be in his handwriting. On the back of it 
is the record of his age, and that of his wife, Beulah, also date of his 
death. I enclose it to you. I promised to return this paper. 

"Yours respectfully, 

" F. A. WILSON." . 

The following is a literal copy of this family record: 
" M Lyon — Issue 2d Venturk. 

" Minerva, born May 27th, 1785 
" Chittenden, born Feb'y 22d, 1787 
" Aurelia, born June 27th, 1790 
" Matthew, born April i8th, 1792 
" Noah Chitt", born March 22d, 1794 
" Deceased, born August i6th, Same 
" Beulah, bom July 26th, 1796." 

Giles, born , 1803 

Eliza Ann, born June nth, 1805. 

[Note. — The two last children, Giles and Eliza Ann, are not in the 
record, but are added by author from data furnished by Mrs. Roe.] 

The above interesting family record is in a bold, clear hand, 
and bears the marks of age. It was undoubtedly written by 
Matthew Lyon himself. The author has compared it with 
numerous letters of Colonel Lyon now in his possession, and 
the writing is identical. On the back of the paper, in a dif- 
ferent hand, the following appears : 

" Col. Matthew Lyon 
Was born July 14th, 1750. 
Beulah Lyon 

Was born May 15th, 1764. 
Col. Matthew Lyon 
Deceased August ist, 1822*" 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 33 

This endorsement, which also bears the marks of age, was 
probably written by Mrs. Beulah Lyon shortly after her hus- 
band's death in 1822. The dates of birth and death in the case 
of her husband are given, but in that of herself only the date 
of her birth. It is thus probable that she was still living at the 
time the endorsement on the record was made, otherwise the 
date of her death would likely have been given as in the case 
of her husband. And if she were living, no one else was so apt 
to be acquainted with the facts as herself. Mrs. Lyon survived 
her husband eighteen months. The interesting paper was re- 
turned to Mr. Wilson, in compliance with his wishes, after an 
exact copy of its contents had been made for this biography. 

Nothing further is needed to correct the mistakes concerning 
the age of Matthew Lyon in every hitherto published account 
of his life. Mr. Wharton, author of the celebrated work on 
American Criminal Law, has written a graphic but imperfect 
sketch of Lyon in his valuable volume entitled " The State 
Trials of the United States." Speaking of the old patriot's 
trial under the Sedition act, he says : " Of the defendant in 
this case himself, who for many years was so famous in Ameri- 
can politics, no biography, as far as I can find, has been writ- 
ten."** He was obliged to piece out his narrative from the very 
imperfect recollections of Mr. Henry Stevens, of Barnet, Ver- 
mont, and to collect such incidents in Colonel Lyon's life as he 
could glean from vague newspaper accounts of his career. 

The present is the first attempt to write Lyon's life from 
original sources which has ever been made. Newspapers and 
hearsay reminiscences have been the only dependence of all 
previous writers during the past seventy or eighty years in 

« P. 2,2>7- 



34 MATTHEW LYON 

every account extant of his remarkable career. The task of 
seeking out original sources of information has been entirely 
neglected. A career full of historical action of the first im- 
portance, and replete with stirring and romantic incidents, de- 
serves to be better known, and is still a want, as it was when 
Wharton wrote, in the political literature of the country. 

An American sea captain engaged in that mitigated form of 
the barbarous slave trade, the transportation of indentured 
servants, or redemptioners, from Europe to the American 
colonies, is generally supposed to have lured Matthew Lyon 
from his native land to this country. This cruel traffic long 
flourished in both French and British America, and was only 
discontinued in several parts of the United States about fifty or 
sixty years ago. Redemptioners were distinguished from 
African and Indian slaves by the fact that one system was 
based upon apprenticeship to labor for a term of years in satis- 
faction of passage or ship money, on the completion of which 
the debtor redeemed his freedom; while the other system was 
one of perpetual bondage. Under the Connecticut Code of 
1650, commonly called the Blue Laws, the traffic in redemp- 
tioners flourished vigorously, and not only in the Connecticut 
market, but in all the Anglo-American colonies, poor Euro- 
peans were constantly on sale in the seaport towns as inden- 
tured servants. Skippers and merchantmen drove a thriving 
business in the brutalizing trade. 

The story as handed down that Matthew Lyon was inveigled 
into the toils of one of these rovers of the deep lacks authentic- 
ity. No doubt the captain was ready enough to entrap the 
boy aboard of his vessel, for that was in the line of his trade. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 35 

and no doubt he held out such inducements to him as that a 
clever young Dublin printer would make money faster in the 
colonies than at home; but Matthew was not a callow youth 
to be caught with such a bait. Higher and manlier motives 
were at play in the boy's bosom. The terrible sufferings of 
the Irish people at that day, the insurrection of the White Boys 
against their tyrants and would-be destroyers, the probable 
execution of his own father during the revolt, and the impover- 
ishment and desolation which no doubt overtook his father's 
family, all these circumstances furnish stronger motives for 
his exile than the trumpery lies of a vulgar sea captain playing 
on the boy's excited credulity. What cared the high-spirited 
Matthew Lyon whether he came as galley slave or redemp- 
tioner, provided that he might put an ocean between himself 
and the oppressors who had brought such misery home to his 
own door? But the true story of his emigration has never yet 
been told. Fessenden's caustic verses and William Cobbett's 
lampoons, as well as the attacks of others among Lyon's politi- 
cal enemies, served to obscure the truth out of sight. 

The bitterness of early party contests, notwithstanding the 
pictures of idyllic simplicity in the olden day drawn by declaim- 
ers of the Fourth of July school, was as intense, if not so 
vulgar, as it is in the present age. The Federalists sneered at 
Congressman Lyon as an Irish adventurer who had been 
bought for a pair of stags. Rhymers of the John Adams party 
wrote many taunting squibs on this topic. Lyon was too sen- 
sible to lose his temper at these attacks, and too proud to be 
ashamed of his early adversities. He declared that what was 
said about the stags was perfectly true, and his favorite im- 
precation was " by the bulls that redeemed me." Fessenden, 



36 MATTHEW LYON 

tlie most satirical of the Federalist poets, in a smart song-, 
called the " Dagon of Democracy," the name he gave to Lyon, 
refers to this incident in the following lines: 

" 'Tis said that he brags 
How one pair of stags, 

Erst paid for his passage from Europe; 
But the price of a score 
Would scarce send him o'er, 

And pay for his hangman a new rope! 

Chorus. 
" O then ye are lucky. 
Good men of Kentucky, 

To choose spitting Matt for your idol; 
Come frolic and caper, 
By the blaze of his taper 

And sing fol de rol, diddle di dol." 

Petty assaults of this kind, and there were many of them, 
sealed Lyon's lips on the subject, and uncontradicted malevo- 
lence had the whole field to itself. False stories of his 
emigration and apprenticeship were spread abroad on all 
sides. Had he denied that he came as a redemptioner, and 
entered into explanations, his enemies might have said that he 
was seeking to parry the force of their blows. He, therefore, 
remained silent, and his epigrammatic oath about the bulls 
that redeemed him served to give color to the slanders of his 
enemies. The fact that he did not set out for America as a 
redemptioner at all, but was reduced to that state of servitude 
by the bad faith of the captain with whom he sailed, never 
reached the eye of the general public during Colonel Lyon's 
lifetime. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 37 

His late venerable daughter, Mrs. Eliza A, Roe^ of Ghana, 
Og"le county, Illinois, communicated to the present writer in 
the year 1881, the true history of her father's emigration to 
America. This account is contradictory in several important 
particulars of every other one on the subject. 

In all other accounts the fact is assumed as conceded that 
Lyon was a penniless redemptioner who came to America on 
stipulated terms mutually agreed to between the captain and 
himself before the vessel sailed. Mrs. Roe corrects this, and 
declares that her father was cheated out of his money and 
services, and sold as a redemptioner by the master of the 
vessel in violation of the agreement between them. 

Matthew while living in Dublin had read a great deal about 
the new world. In 1757 his townsman, the great Edmund 
Burke, published " An Account of the European Settlements 
in America " in two volumes," in which, with a master's hand, 
he depicted the rising glories of the colonies. Robertson's 
" History of America " is to some extent a compilation from 
Burke's Account. Compared with misgoverned and famine- 
stricken Ireland, the American colonies presented a contrast 
too marked to escape the quick eye of Lyon. The evictions 
begun in 1762 among the Irish Cottiers to make room for 
alien speculators still continued undiminished in 1765, when 
Lyon left the country. To his mother he often expressed the 
wish to come to America, but she invariably refused her con- 
sent. Recognizing his talents, she indulged in day-dreams of 
future greatness for him in Ireland, and mother's love no doubt 
strengthened her opposition. But the boy's mind was in- 
flamed not only by Burke's account, but by the letters of 



o A Dublin edition was printed in 1762. 



38 MATTHEW LYON 

another of his countrymen, the celebrated George Berkeley, 
Bishop of Cloyne, who came to New England in 1728, and 
passed about two years at Newport, Rhode Island. Bishop 
Berkeley's noble verses on the prospect of planting arts and 
learning in America, the last stanza of which " Westward the 
course of empire takes its way," is so often misquoted, must 
have appealed powerfully to Lyon's ardent imagination. Hav- 
ing resolved to quit the down-trodden land of his birth, his 
resolution became more firmly fixed by opposition, and at 
length he determined to put it into execution at the first 
opportunity. Tliat opportunity soon offered. American sea- 
captains were always on the lookout for Irish youths, and 
Lyon met one of them at Dublin in 1765 who commanded a 
fine vessel about to sail for New York. The captain offered 
Lyon a free passage in place of wages, in consideration of 
which the youth was to serve as cabin boy during the trip 
across the Atlantic. Tliese terms were accepted by Lyon. 
He was the possessor of a guinea which he placed in the 
captain's hands for safe keeping until they should arrive at 
New York. 

The day before the vessel sailed he went in the gray of the 
morning to his mother's room to gaze for the last time upon 
his beloved parent. Knowing that a formal leave taking was 
out of the question, he entered on tip-toe, for he was well aware 
that on the slightest intimation of his purpose she would thwart 
it at all hazards. Long and sadly he gazed upon the sleeping 
woman, the solitary link that bound him to his home. He 
described the scene in after years to his family and friends in 
Vermont as one of the saddest trials of his life. Between filial 
love and the aspiration to escape from bondage in Ireland to 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 39 

freedom in America, the struggle was long and bitter. " His 
nature," says his daughter, " was very sympathetic and affec- 
tionate." Commanding with difficulty his pent-up feelings, Mat- 
thew took a last silent farewell of his mother, and passed out of 
her presence forever. Gathering up a small parcel of his cloth- 
ing he hastened to the vessel, and placed himself under the 
captain's orders. The latter suspecting that a rescue might be 
attempted by the boy's friends, secreted him in the hold of the 
vessel, where he remained concealed all that day. 

The late Mrs. Elizabeth A. Roe, of Ghana, Illinois, in a 
letter to the author, has furnished full particulars of her father's 
departure from Ireland. I will let her tell the story in her own 

^^^^^- "Ghana, Ogle County, Illinois, 

" May 24th, 1881. 

" Dear Sir. — It is with pleasure I attempt to answer your polite 
letter in my homely fashion. You cannot expect much from one so 
old and infirm, 76 the nth of next June. I am very much pleased that 
one who is so capable and so interested has undertaken to write my 
dear Father's history. I have often wondered that it had not been 
done by some of his political friends. 

" In the first place, I must say that I know but very little about his 
home and friends in Ireland. I know I have often heard my dear 
Mother say his home was in Dublin, and that his parents were 
wealthy. My Father came to America when he was fourteen years 
old. He read a great deal about the New World, as it was called then, 
and he had a great desire to come over to America. But he was idol- 
ized by his parents,^ and they could not bear the idea of his coming 
to the new country, and leaving his good home so young. They had 
taken a great deal of pains to educate him. He was studious and pro- 
gressed very fast, and they were in hopes that he would make a great 



oAs Lyon's father was probably put to death at the time of the 
rising of the White Boys, years before the son's emigration, Mrs. 
Roe's use of the plural, parents, strengthens Collins's statement that 
Lyon's mother was twice married. 



40 MATTHEW LYON 

man at home if he stayed there. But the more he read the more 
anxious he was to come, and the more his parents opposed it. At 
length he resolved to steal away and come. 

" There were a great many young men coming then who were not 
able to pay their passage, and they arranged it with the captains of the 
different vessels that when they arrived in port they would be inden- 
tured until the age of twenty-one to pay their board and passage to 
America. Father thought he would do that rather than not come. 
He had in his possession one guinea. But he made arrangements with 
the captain of a very fine vessel to be cabin boy for his passage. The 
vessel was to sail the next day. He told the captain he Avould have to 
secrete him, for his Father would search every vessel at the wharf for 
him. The captain did so, and when his Father came to the vessel in 
search of him, he heard his voice calling, ' Matthew, my dear boy, 
come to the embrace of your Father. Don't leave your parents and 
go you know not where.' And Father would have gone to him, but 
that he was secured so he could not get to him. He was very sympa- 
thetic and aflfectionate. 

" The vessel sailed next morning, and bore him out of port, and he 
never saw his parents again. He had such implicit confidence in the 
captain that he gave his guinea to him for safekeeping. But when he 



"George Taylor, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from 
Pennsylvania, was a redemptioner. " He was born in Ireland in 1716, 
so poor," says Thomas D'Arcy McGee in his " History of the Irish 
Settlers in North America," " that his services were sold on his ar- 
rival to pay the expenses of his passage out," p. 68. Also see " The 
Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Maryland and Dis- 
trict of Columbia," p. 380, published at Baltimore by the National Bio- 
graphical Publishing Co., 1879, which says Daniel Dulany's father, Daniel 
Dulany, Sr., was a cousin of Rev. Patrick Dulany, the Dean of Down, 
and was born in 1686, in Queens County, Ireland. Owing to his 
father's second marriage and an irreconcilable quarrel with his step- 
mother, he ran away while quite a lad from the University of Dublin, 
indentured himself to pay the expenses of his passage and came to 
Maryland. Accidentally his education and breeding were discovered 
by the gentleman who purchased him. and he soon rose to his proper 
social level. He was admitted to the bar in 1710. The case of Dulany 
lends plausibility to Mrs. Roe's story that her father's parents were 
wealthy. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 4I 

got to port the captain indentured him just as he did the other boys 
and kept his guinea; only that as he was such a large, fine looking 
boy he passed him oflf on sale for eighteen years old. He let them go 
to the highest bidder. So he was only indentured for three years 
instead of five. He worked out part of his time, and bought the rest 
of it, and commenced life for himself. He worked hard at low wages 
and paid his boss, for he had accumulated some property. 

" He was married when he was twenty-one or twenty-two years old 
to a Miss Hosford. They had four children, and then she died. He 
lived a widower about a year, and was then married to my dear 
Mother, who was the third daughter of Governor Thomas Chittenden, 
and the widow of George Galusha, a son of the second governor of 
Vermont." * * * 

" Yours Very Sincerely, 

" Eliza A. Roe." 

It appears from this interesting and authentic contribution 
to the history of Matthew Lyon's early Hfe that he shipped 
from Ireland, not as a redemptioner at all, but as cabin boy 
to the master of the vessel, who robbed him of the pittance of 
money he held in trust for him, and sold him as a redemp- 
tioner, in violation of the agreement to give him a free passage 
to America in lieu of wages as an employee of the vessel. 
Having cheated young Lyon, it was not surprising that this 
trafficker in human flesh, even when trying to make some 
amends for his injustice to him, took care to practice his gen- 
erosity at the expense of another, and deceived Jabez Bacon, 
the purchaser of the boy's service, in regard to his age. It is 
probable the incorrect idea that Lyon was born in 1746 
originated with this captain's false statement in adding several 
years to the boy's true age. 

In relation to this voyage an additional occurrence is related 
by Rev. Pliny H. White in his Lyon address before the Ver- 
mont Historical Society. " During the passage," says the Ver- 



42 MATTHEW LYON 

mont antiquarian, " he (Lyon) was attacked by violent 
sickness, and was delirious for many days. On his recovery 
he found himself destitute even of so much clothing as was 
needful to supply the place of that which his disease had 
rendered unfit for further use ; and his necessities were supplied 
from the scanty wardrobes of some abandoned women who 
were his fellow passengers, and who, true to the kindly instincts 
which were in womanly nature, even when most depraved, had 
tenderly ministered to him in his sickness when all others de- 
serted him, and now, out of their own deep poverty, supplied 
his yet greater need." Mr. Matthew S. Lyon, of Evansville, 
Indiana, mentions the same incident in the letter respecting his 
grandfather's autobiography. 

But to those acquainted with the brutalities and outrages 
practised upon steerage passengers in emigrant ships, how far 
the epithet " abandoned " is justly applied by Mr. White to 
those women, may be an open question. So recently as the 
year i860 the Congress of the United States passed stringent 
laws for the protection of helpless females from inhumanity 
and brutal violence at the hands of officers and seamen of 
emigrant vessels. Those who are inclined to know more of 
the iniquities of those marine dens, and of the peril to which 
helpless but virtuous female immigrants were formerly ex- 
posed, will do well to consult the work of the late John Francis 
Maguire, M. P., called " The Irish in America." The title of 
the United States statute is as follows: " To regulate the car- 
riage of passengers in steamships and other vessels, for the 
better protection of female passengers," and sufficiently shows 
what evil it was intended to arrest. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 43 

Vessels carrying redemptioners in the last century were more 
open to the charge of licentiousness than those of a more recent 
date, against which the penalties of the law were denounced in 
i860. Archibald Hamilton Rowan, a name imperishably 
associated with the eloquence of John Philpot Curran, passed a 
few years in America towards the end of the last century, and 
bears testimony to the evils endured in the white slave ships by 
Irish and Dutch redemptioners. In a letter to his wife, written 
at Wilmington, Delaware, November 5, 1797, Mr. Rowan says: 

" The members of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery 
have not the least objection to buying an Irishman or Dutch- 
man, and will chaflFer with himself or the captain to get him 
indented at about the eighth part of the wages they would have 
to pay a country born. But to tell truth, they who are thus 
purchased generally do themselves justice, and run away before 
half their term is up. This, then, like every other abuse, falls 
hard only on the best subjects."*^ In another letter Mr. Rowan 
writes: "Swarms of Irish are expected here by the spring 
vessels, and the brisk trade for Irish slaves here is to make up 
for the low price of flax seed! "^ 

A more particular description of this barbarous traffic is 
found in Fearon's " Sketches of America," published at Lon- 
don in 1818. " A practice which has been often referred to in' 
connection with this country," says Fearon, " naturally excited 
my attention. It is that of individuals emigrating from Europe 
without money, and paying for their passage by binding them- 
selves to the captain, who receives the produce of their labor 



" " Autobiography of Archibald Hamilton Rowan," p. 318. 
^Ibid, p. S18. 



44 MATTHEW LYON 

for a certain number of years. The price for women is about 
$70, men $80, boys $60." 

The year, but not the month, of Lyon's arrival in America is 
known. He came in 1765, the year made memorable by the 
passage of the Stamp Act, Mr. Rowan, writing in 1797, said 
the spring vessels brought swarms of Irish. Lyon probably 
came in the spring. For this opinion there is a further reason: 
The 14th of July was his birthday; he must have arrived before 
that day, since, if he came after it he was then in his sixteenth 
year, which he himself said was not the case, as he lived in 
Connecticut from his fifteenth to his twenty-fifth year." 

The town of Ancient Woodbury enjoyed the distinction at 
that day of being the home of the wealthiest merchant in Con- 
necticut. This was the celebrated Jabez Bacon, whose descen- 
dants have been so numerous and respectable in that State. 
That careful historian Hinman says, in his " Historical Collec- 
tions," that Bacon left an estate valued at nine hundred thou- 
sand dollars. The accounts and traditions of the man which 
have come down to us represent him as an individual not less 
remarkable for the originality of his character than for the 
boldness of his operations. Some of his daring speculations 
read like the exploits of an Astor or a Vanderbilt or Jay Gould 
of the present age, rather than those of a country storekeeper 
in a little Connecticut village a century and a quarter ago. 

Mr. Bacon made frequent visits to New York, where he was 
a lion among the merchants in those primitive days. The lead- 
ing trait of his character seems to have been extraordinary 
self-reliance. He was known, says Cothren, to have struck 



"Annals of Congress, 1798, p. 1025. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 45 

bargains in five minutes upon which the loss or gain of a 
fortune turned. 

It was with this enterprising man that Matthew Lyon's 
destiny brought him face to face upon his arrival at New York. 
Bold, impetuous, and daring in the extreme himself, the young 
Wicklow emigre, by a rare felicity of fortune, attracted the 
keen eye of the Connecticut merchant, in whom Lyon saw 
many of his own qualities reflected, but on the part of Bacon 
they were chastened and directed by matured judgment and 
the cool New England temperament. The meeting between 
them must have been an agreeable one, for their affinities no 
doubt drew them towards each other from the first. But there 
are no particulars of this interesting meeting, only the bare 
statement of the fact itself by Cothren, that " Matthew Lyon 
was assigned on his arrival in New York to Jabez Bacon, of 
Woodbury, who brought him home."® 

In after years Lyon became the founder of a town in Ver- 
mont and of another in Kentucky ; United States mail contrac- 
tor for the Western States and territories; and the originator 
of newspapers, mills, factories, shipyards, and other industries. 
Who knows how much he owed to old Jabez Bacon, whose 
pluck and tireless activity were constant objects of admiration 
to such an apt boy? The contagious influence and example of 
such a man must have been an excellent school for the young 
apprentice. Lyon would have become a good business man, 
though he had never known Bacon; whether he would have 
done so many things as well, and left his impress upon them 
all as deeply, without such a guide in the beginning, may very 
reasonably be doubted. Contact of the right sort is beneficial 



o " History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p 320. 



46 MATTHEW LYON 

to every one; to a youth of ardent and impressionable nature, 
its value as an educational influence cannot be overestimated. 

About the end of April, 1765, news of the Stamp Act reached 
New York. It was passed March 22d. From that time to the 
close of the year the aroused colonies were preparing for war, 
and in many places the " Sons of Liberty," a title derived from 
a passage in Colonel Barre's celebrated speech in the British 
Parliament, were in open rebellion against the royal authority. 
A Colonial Congress, the first one of the revolutionary era, 
met this year in New York, and adopted a spirited declaration 
of the rights and grievances of the Colonies. A petition for 
redress was dispatched to George the Third, and energetic 
memorials were sent out to each House of the British Parlia- 
ment. On the evening of the day appointed for the Stamp 
Act to go into operation a riot took place in New York. The 
" Sons of Liberty," in two companies, marched through the 
streets demanding the surrender to them of the obnoxious 
stamps. But the distributor had resigned and refused to touch 
the stamps, and Colden, the commandant, had taken them into 
the fort. Colden was hung in effigy by the people, and his 
carriage was burned under the muzzles of his own guns. 
General Gage, the commander-in-chief in America, who 
then happened to be on the spot, wisely advised Colden to sur- 
render the stamps to the infuriated populace. They were 
accordingly given up to the Mayor and Corporation, and 
deposited in the City Hall." 

Such were the scenes transpiring on all sides when Matthew 
Lyon arrived in the new world. As he left the ship and passed 
through the streets of New York in company with Jabez 

a " Hildreth's History of the United States," Vol. Il, pp. 531-2. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 47 

Bacon, sounds of the popular commotion must have reached 
the ears of the astonished boy. They were not unfamiliar 
sounds to him, for he had heard them in his native Wicklow, 
with the sinister accompaniments of famine, chains and the 
gallows superadded — the protests of a people against tyranny. 
' He had come three thousand miles across the sea to escape 
/from that tyranny, and now upon his arrival in America, its 
black shadow, which he thought he had left behind him forever 
in the old world, was enveloping in gloom the new. The life 
of his father had been forfeited to it; his home had been ren- 
dered desolate by it ; and here it was in New York as in Ireland, 
lifting its menacing front athwart his path. Filled with dismay 
must have been the heart of the young exile. But there was 
this comforting difference, the " Sons of Liberty " were in 
arms, and the adherents of England were fleeing terror-stricken 
from the wrath of a people resolved to break the chains of the 
oppressor before they could be riveted upon them. 

Lyon's stay in New York was probably short, for Jabez 
Bacon was too much engrossed in mercantile pursuits to take 
any interest in patriotic affairs, and as soon as he had made 
his purchases he was off again to Connecticut. Cothren says 
that " an aged merchant of New York told him many years 
ago that Mr. Bacon would sometimes visit his store, make him 
a bid for a whole tier of shelf goods, from floor to ceiling, 
amounting in value to thousands of dollars, and have the whole 
boxed and shipped in an hour to the sloop at the foot of Peck 
Slip, bound for Derby."" 

Woodbury is situated in the Pomperaug Valley, in Litchfield 
county, Connecticut, fourteen miles from the New York State 



o " History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p. 353^ 



48 MATTHEW LYON 

line, and ninety miles from the city of New York. The young 
emigrant was soon established in his new home in the " land of 
steady habits," an apprentice of the most enterprising mer- 
chant in the Colony of Connecticut. 

This town was the birthplace of many revolutionary heroes. 
Among the number were the future uncle by marriage of Mat- 
thew Lyon, Ethan Allen himself, the Ajax Telamon of the* 
Green Mountain Boys; also Seth Warner, their Hercules in 
stature and prowess; and Remember Baker, worthy kins- 
man and associate of both. The note of preparation for the 
great struggle was already heard in Ancient Woodbury, and 
Matthew Lyon began to learn his first lessons in the cause of 
freedom among the hardy sons of the Connecticut mountains. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 49 



CHAPTER II. 

THE COLONIES THROW OFF THE YOKE OF ENGLAND — CHIEF 

JUSTICE Marshall's error — gathering up the lost 

THREADS IN MATTHEW LYON's EARLY LIFE IN CONNECTICUT 
AND VERMONT — HIS FIRST MARRIAGE — PRESIDENT DWIGHT 
FORGETS HIS USUAL URBANITY. 

tcT^ HERE were not wanting some," said the elder Pitt, in 
his celebrated speech on the right of taxing America, 
" when I had the honor to serve his Majesty, to propose to 
me to burn my fingers with an American stamp act. With the 
enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in the 
day of their distress, perhaps the Americans would have sub- 
mitted to the imposition; but it would have been taking an 
ungenerous and unjust advantage of them."** The great Com- 
moner was mistaken, not only in his opinion of the probable 
result, but in the motives which prevented the experiment. 
Magnanimity or justice to the Colonies had nothing to do with 
England's forbearance. During the old French war the 
British government feared to encounter the danger of such a 
step, for on its American Colonies the happy issue of the war 
mainly depended. Had a stamp act been imposed at an earlier 
day, England and not France would have been driven out of 
America. Robert Walpole, the predecessor of Pitt, main- 

<^ Speech of William Pitt on the Right of Taxing America, delivered 
in the House of Commons January 14, 1766. 



56 MATTHEW LYON 

tained that ever>'thing had its price, but with his usual hard 
sense he made an exception of the Hberties of the Colonies. 
Contenting himself with their trade, he dryly remarked that he 
would leave the taxation of the Americans to some of his suc- 
cessors who had more courage and less regard for commerce.* 

From the dawn of English colonization in America, it was 
the cherished scheme of the crown to establish a complete 
supremacy in the plantations. Evidences of this design are 
to be found everywhere and at all times in Colonial history. 
During the reigns of James the First, and Charles the First, 
every measure of government in America was carried by royal 
prerogative. But the Colonists were then too insignificant in 
resources and numbers to excite the cupidity of the mother 
country. The civil wars coming on in the latter part of the 
reign of Charles the First served to distract attention from 
America, and while the Roundheads and Cavaliers were im- 
bruing their hands in each other's blood, the plantations grew 
apace in population and prosperity. Cromwell concerned him- 
self less about Colonial affairs than with the domestic compli- 
cations of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, and was so 
unfavorably impressed with America that he invited the Puri- 
tans of New England to leave the savage wilderness, and take 
possession of the plundered estates in Ireland.^ 

With the restoration of the Stuarts under Charles the Second 
began the system of commercial oppression, for the trade of the 
Colonies had now become sufficiently great to be made the 
subject of monopoly. To regulate and restrain it was the first 
step; to impose duties on it the next one. In vain did the 



"Marshall's " Life of Washington," Vol. II. 
*Lingard's " History of England," VIII., 176. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 51 

Colonies struggle against English monopoly. Charles, trust- 
ing less to prerogative than parliamentary enactments, brought 
into full play the Navigation Act, and cramped the trade of 
America by duties, restrictions and penalties of the most exact- 
ing nature. The Colonies were yet too weak to oflfer effectual 
resistance. If this external oppression had been followed up 
by internal monopoly, or the imposition by Parliament of an 
inland tax upon the plantations, the last safeguard would have 
been swept away, the power of self-protection would have been 
at an end, the freemen of the American provinces would have 
become the veriest slaves of England. It was providential that 
the right was not then set up to levy taxes for revenue on 
America, for resistance at that day was out of the question. 
With equal rigor, but less ability, James the Second pursued 
the oppressive commercial policy of Charles towards the 
Colonies. He made the mistake, however, of trusting to pre- 
rogative, where the last King, with better statesmanship, relied 
on the co-operation of Parliament. The loss of his throne 
rendered the hostility of James to the Americans powerless for 
injury. 

Upon the accession of William of Orange, America, for the 
first time, was in a position to dictate to England a policy pro- 
motive of provincial rights and liberties. Hitherto it had been 
the thrall of England; now it became the bulwark of British 
domination. From this time forward, for a period of seventy- 
five years, down to 1763, England and France were in an 
almost uninterrupted struggle for supremacy in America. The 
commands of the Crown upon the Colonies for men and 
money, during the progress of these wars, were about as effec- 
tive as afterwards were the recommendations of the old Con- 



$2 MATTHEW LYON 

federated government to the thirteen States. The Colonial As- 
semblies obeyed the requisitions or not, as seemed to them 
most convenient. Both Crown and Parliament chafed under this 
defiant growth of liberty in the Colonies, but as their aid in the 
wars with the French was indispensable, the hazardous experi- 
ment of taxing them, however near the English heart the desire 
might be, never was ventured upon in a single instance. That 
England longed for the favorable hour when she might un- 
resisted wield autocratic power over her American provinces 
cannot for a moment be doubted by anyone who closely ex- 
amines the events of those days. 

In 1701 and again in 1714, Parliament attempted the destruc- 
tion of the charter and proprietary governments. Still another 
and more dangerous effort was made by Parliament in 1748 
to give to the King's colonial instructions the force of law. 
Finally the secretary for foreign affairs and the English Board 
of Trade proposed in 1753. with the same ulterior designs upon 
the liberties of America, a plan of colonial union, which was 
formulated by Franklin the next year in the Albany Conven- 
tion, but rejected by the Colonial Assemblies on the one hand, 
as detrimental to their freedom, and by the English govern- 
ment on the other, for the opposite reason that it dangerously 
enlarged it." 

The exigencies of England in that age enabled the Colonies 
to baffle all these attempts upon their liberties. Fear, and not 
affection, withheld the vengeance of the mother country. 
English statesmen, with Lord Chatham at their head, might 
descant upon British magnanimity; but the war-cry of New 
France, intermingled with the war-whoop of the Algonquins, 



oHilclreth's " History of the United States," Vol. II, p. 444- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 53 

proved the potent arbitrator between the Ang-lo-American 
Colonies and the vengeance of their loving mother." Eng- 
land's magnanimity was brought to the test in 1763, when, by 
the aid of the Colonists, the English arms were victorious, and 
the French power in America was destroyed. Hardly had the 
treaty of Paris been signed when England gave notice of her 
tender purpose, now that the hated French were out of the way, 
to carry through Parliament an American Stamp Act, and to 
crush the Colonies between the upper and nether millstones 
of commercial high protective restrictions and internal mo- 
nopoly. Taxes were to be raised in America for purposes of 
revenue by the arbitrary fiat of a Parliament in which Ameri- 
cans were not represented. Mr. Grenville, the illiberal lawyer 
and official barnacle, with the whip and spur of an imperious 
majority, carried the Stamp Act through Parliament March 22, 
1765. The insolent vices of prosperity were hurrying England 
forward to her supreme and crowning humiliation. 

The biography of Matthew Lyon is not the place to write 
the history of the Revolution, but before passing from the con- 
sideration of the Stamp Act, the first measure of arbitrary power 
in the impending struggle, the writer of these pages cannot but 
express astonishment to find Chief Justice Marshall implicitly 
following Lord Mansfield in the procession of courtiers, and 
making special pleas on the side of King, Lords and Commons. 
Not only does the American Chief Justice appear to lean to the 
side of arbitrary power, but he makes a labored argument to 
show that in Parliament was lodged the right to impose a tax 
upon the Colonies in order to raise a revenue for England. 



»"Life of John Stark," by Edward Everett, p. 3 in Vol. I of "Sparks's 
American Biography." 



54 MATTHEW LYON 

No wonder that Junius fixed Mansfield in the pillory. No 
wonder that the author of the Declaration of Indej -ndence 
looked upon the American Mansfield as too close a copy of the 
original. But judges are the natural defenders of prerogative. 
In Marshall's "Life of Washington," which Jefferson deicribed 
as "a five-volumed libel" upon the Democratic party, and as a 
partisan publication prepared rather to bolster up the sinking 
fortunes of the Federalists than to celebrate Washington,** the 
Chief Justice exposes his want of acquaintance with Colonial 
history by the following observations: " The degree of author- 
ity which might rightfully be exercised by the mother country 
over her Colonies had never been accurately defined. In 
Britain it had always been asserted that Parliament possessed 
the power of binding them in all cases whatsoever."*' And 
then, as if he had never heard of James Otis or old Sam Adams, 
he asserts that even in rebellious Massachusetts "this had per- 
haps become the opinion of many of the best informed m.en in 
the province."" Next follows this extraordinary statement: 
" The English statute book furnishes many instances in which 
the legislative power of Parliament over the Colonies was ex- 
ercised, so as to make regulations completely internal; and in 
no instance that is recollected was their authority openly con- 
troverted. "■* As if there could not be a doubt about it, this 
high prerogative Federalist refers to the utterances of English 
ministers at divers times on the subject, and then sums up thus: 
" Of the right of Parliament, as the supreme authority of the 



a" Jefferson's Works," Vol. V, p. 587; IX, p. 478, etc 
f> " Marshall's Washington," Vol. II, p. 99- 
Vhid, Vol. II, p. 99- 
^Ihid, Vol. II, p. loi. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 55 

nation, to tax as well as to govern the Colonies, those who 
guided the councils of Britain seem not to have entertained a 
doubt."" Why even that oracle of the law, Daniel Dulany, 
loyalist and all as this illustrious man afterwards became, utterly 
annihilates these specious claims of a parliamentary right to 
raise a revenue by taxation in the Colonies.'' 

It was these grave mistakes of Chief Justice Marshall in deal- 
ing with important facts of Colonial history that compelled 
Chancellor Kent, otherwise his warm admirer, to say of his 
"Life of Washington:" "This work is very authentic and accur- 
ate, except the first volume on Colonial history."" Mr. Bancroft, 
though he himself is happier at narrative than constitutional 
exposition, declares " Marshall meagre and incomplete. ""^ 
Blackwood's Magazine finds him " greatly mistaken several 
times in matters of importance."* John Randolph, the ex- 
travagant admirer of Marshall, said in a letter to Philip Barton 
Key, " I cannot, however, help thinking that he was too long 
at the bar before he ascended the bench; and, that like our 
friend P., he had injured, by the indiscriminate defense of right 
or wrong, the tone of his perception (if you will allow so quaint 
a phrase) of truth or falsehood."-'' 

The gravamen of Marshall's statements is that anterior to 
the passage of the Stamp Act, Parliament possessed the right 
to bind the Colonies in all cases whatsoever, externally and 



<^Ibid, Vol. II, p. 103. 

^ " Dulany's Considerations," etc., quoted with approval by Lord 
Chatham in the House of Lords. 

c " Kent's Course of English Reading, 1853," p. 44. 
<*" North American Review," Vol. XLVI, p. 483. 
e " Blackwood," Vol. XVII. pp. 57, 187. 
/ Baldwin's " Party Leaders," p. 241. 



56 MATTHEW LYON 

internally, and that this authority had never been openly contro- 
verted by the Colonies. This, of course, embraced the right 
to tax them for purposes of revenue. Never was more egregi- 
ous error made by a weighty writer. Judge Marshall 
confounds the commercial regulations and restraints imposed 
by the mother country upon the Colonies with the right to tax 
them for revenue. The former had been in force from the 
earliest days, from the origin of the Navigation Act in 1651, 
but never until 1764, more than a century later, when the 
Stamp Act was brought forward, had the attempt been made to 
impose a revenue tax upon America by the British Parliament. 
Edmund Burke, the highest authority upon Colonial history, 
is very clear on this point. " The principle of commercial 
monopoly," Burke says, " runs through no less than twenty- 
nine acts of Parliament, from the year 1660 to the unfortunate 
period of 1764. In all those acts the system of commerce is 
established, as that from whence alone you proposed to make 
the Colonies contribute (I mean directly and by the operation 
of your superintending legislative power) to the strength of the 
empire. I venture to say that during that whole period" — how 
could Marshall have failed to know this? — " a parliamentary 
revenue from thence was never once in contemplation. Ac- 
cordingly in all the number of laws passed with regard to the 
plantations, the words which distinguished revenue laws, 
specifically as such, were, I think, premeditatedly avoided. 
* * * This is certainly true, that no act avowedly for the 
purpose of revenue, and with the ordinary title and recital taken 
together, is found in the statute book until the year I have 
mentioned, that is, the year 1764. All before this period stood 
on commercial regulation and restraint. The scheme of a 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 57 

Colony revenue by British authority appeared, therefore, to the 
Americans in the light of a great innovation."" 

Chief Justice Marshall's reading of the English statute-book 
must have been limited, when with such commentators as 
Edmund Burke and Lord Chatham right at hand on the very 
subject he was discussing, he preferred to assert for English 
prerogative claims more extravagant than had been set up by 
the English people themselves. Judge Marshall probably 
formed his opinions on this subject from those of the Crown 
lawyers, which were oracular to this extent, that they always 
were adapted to the wishes of those who sought them, whether 
or not, as a Colonial witticism ran, they were given for half a 
crown each. " I have lived long enough," Daniel Dulany 
said, " to remember many opinions of Crown lawyers upon 
American affairs. They have all declared that to be legal 
which the minister for the time being has deemed to be ex- 
pedient."^ 

The Colonists maintained the right of internal taxation as 
residing exclusively in the several Assemblies of the Freemen 
of the Provinces. The Crown had never encroached upon it. 
In the many discussions in Colonial history upon the extension 
of the English statutes, the Americans had always claimed as 
their own inheritance the principles of English liberty. With 
their institutions, their polity, and their charters was insepar- 
ably interwoven the idea of representation as the basis of tax- 
ation. In all the Colonies, whether under proprietary, royal or 
charter governments, the people of each one of them from the 



o Edmund Burke's speech on American Taxation, delivered in the 
House of Commons, April 19, 1774. 
^ " Dulany's Considerations." Annapolis, 1765. 



58 MATTHEW LYON 

first had always been known in their legislative annals as " the 
freemen of the province." The careful student of history will 
find from the dawn of English settlement in America the germ 
of State rights planted in each Colony. Local self-government 
was the fundamental theory of all the plantations. All grants 
for money were made by the Colonial Assemblies. Whether 
the requisition was from the Crown directly, or the proprietary, 
or the governor, the veto on arbitrary power was lodged in the 
freemen of the provinces represented in their several Legisla- 
tures or Assemblies. Jealously did they guard the trust. Here 
then is to be found the origin of the sovereignty of the Ameri- 
can people, and not in any written constitution. The lex non 
scripta of the freemen of the provinces was the fountain source 
of civil and political liberty in the United States. It came in 
with the extension of the English statutes, and antedated the 
struggle for independence by more than a century. State pride 
may fondly cling to these early memorials, for they are the title- 
deeds of the Republic. In them are to be found ample proofs 
of that autonomy of the States which it is somewhat the 
fashion of late to deride. 

The war of the Revolution, according to Daniel Webster, 
was fought " on a preamble."*^ But Mr. Webster's epigram 
referred to the second stage of the controversy, that which im- 
mediately preceded the clash of arms. Patrick Henry and 
James Otis first uttered the cry of liberty. The people of each 
Colony echoed back the cry when they were told their birth- 
right was in danger, and all were ripe for resistance from 
the moment the passage of the Stamp Act became known. 



« " Webster's Works," Vol. IV, p. 109. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 59 

Resistance was everywhere. The Sons of Liberty* spread over 
all the Colonies so spontaneously that the honor of giving the 
first impulse to the movement cannot be assigned to any man 
or to any Colony. "The punctured veins," says the eloquent 
John V. L. McMahon, " only gave out the blood that pervaded 
the whole system."** Those who led in the crusade for freedom 
are indeed up among the immortals. " Such/' remarks Mc- 
Mahon, " were Henry of Virginia, and Otis, of Massachusetts, 
in the two great Colonies, whose movements against the Stamp 
Act stand first in order and importance upon the page of his- 
tory. They touched the chord of public feeling, already trem- 
blingly alive; and they knew its response."*' 

The young emigrant at Ancient Woodbury had arrived in 
the country in the height of the Stamp Act excitement. Lyon's 
first impressions of America were formed at a time remarkably 
favorable to a quickening of the impulses of freedom. That 
portion of his life which was passed in Connecticut has scarcely 
been mentioned by those who have written cursory sketches of 
his career. The Rev. Pliny H. White, in his address on 
Lyon before the Vermont Historical Society, refers to the place 
of his nativity and his early arrival in America, but then taking 
a short cut into his subject, he declares he knows nothing 
further of him for the succeeding eleven years, that is, until his 
arrival in 1777 at Arlington, Vermont, He dismisses the in- 
teresting period from his fifteenth to his twenty-fifth year, with 
the remark that " neither record nor tradition bears witness to 



"A title borrowed from Colonel Barrc's famous speech. Hildreth's 
" History of the United States," Vol. II, p. 529- 
* McMahon's History, " View of the Government of Maryland," p. 

333- 

o Ibid, p. 333- 



60 MATTHEW LYON 

any other facts in Lyon's early life."* Fortunately for the 
purposes of the present biography, Rev. Mr. White was 
mistaken. There is no authority for his statement that Jesse 
Leavenworth was one of the holders of Lyon's indentures. 
He was likewise absurdly at fault in assigning him to the 
position of " a laborer in the employ of Thomas Chittenden, 
of Arlington, Vermont, afterwards Governor of the State."'' 
Perhaps the desire to tell an anecdote about a New York Fifth 
Avenue coachman, who eloped with his employer's daughter, 
led the speaker out of the path of history into that of romance. 
There are several other inaccuracies in Mr. White's address, 
elsewhere corrected in these pages, notably concerning Colonel 
Lyon's second wife, the number of her children, and the dura- 
tion of her married life. 

Other Vermont writers are nearly as silent in relation to the 
years Lyon spent in Connecticut. The present writer recog- 
nized the importance of collecting the lost threads of that part 
of his life which preceded his advent in Vermont, before the 
fictions concerning his youth, invented afterwards by adversa- 
ries in a season of fierce political contention, should come to 
be accepted as sober fact. Patient research has rewarded the 
investigation with success. Connecticut antiquarians had not 
wholly ignored the young man. The descendants of Colonel 
Lyon rendered valuable aid by furnishing letters, speeches and 
fragmentary sketches. Miss Susan Quincy, daughter of Presi- 
dent Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, and Mrs. S. L. Gouver- 
neur, Jr., of Washington, granddaughter by marriage of Presi- 



a" Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," by Pliny H. White, 1658, 
p. 6. 

''Ibid, p. 6. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 6l 

dent Monroe, have also placed the author under great obliga- 
tions by sending him interesting original letters of Colonel 
Lyon to Josiah Quincy and Senator Mason. All the facts 
bearing on the subject of his life in Connecticut which 
are probably accessible at this day will now be presented 
in their appropriate order. If other records and memorials 
lie buried away beneath the moth and rust of a century and a 
quarter, some intrepid antiquarian may yet bring them to light. 

The fact of Matthew Lyon's residence in Connecticut is 
established upon the testimony of four separate authorities: 

First, Lyon himself, in a speech in Congress in 1798; 
second, George C. Woodruff, in his " History of the Town of 
Litchfield/' published in 1845; third, Payne Kenyon Kilbourne, 
in his " Biographical History of the County of Litchfield," pub- 
lished in 1851; fourth, William Cothren, in the first volume of 
his " History of Ancient Woodbury," published in 1854. 

In one or two other places the fact is mentioned incidentally, 
but the writers here designated claim to have prepared their 
volumes from unpublished original sources, and may be called 
properly authorities on the subject. 

"After living ten years in Connecticut," said Matthew Lyon, 
February i, 1798, on the floor of Congress, " from my fifteenth 
to my twenty-fifth year, I removed to a new settlement in 
Vermont^ then called New Hampshire Grants, about thirty 
miles from Ticonderoga."*^ A few days before making this 
statement, he had said on the floor of the House : " By these 
things, and my standing in this House, I could prove that I 
have always been respected in the country I represent, and 
where I have lived these twenty-four years.'"* 

"Annals of Congress, 1798, p. 1025. 
^ Annals of Congress, 1798, p. 973. 



62 MATTHEW LYON 

Mr. Woodruff's volume contains the first notice of Lyon, 
unless "Morris's Statistical Account of Litchfield," now out of 
print, may be excepted. " Formerly by a law of this State," 
Woodruff says, " if debtors had no other means to pay their 
debts, they were assigned in service for that purpose. And it 
is said to have been common for poor foreigners, who could 
not pay their passage money, to stipulate with the captain of 
the ship, that he might assign them to raise the money. Per- 
sons so assigned were called redemptioners, and several were so 
held in this town. Among them was Matthew Lyon, a native 
of Ireland, who was assigned to Hugh Hannah, of Litchfield, 
for a pair of stags valued at £12. Lyon was afterwards a mem- 
ber of Congress from Vermont and from Kentucky."" 

The next reference to Lyon is found in Mr. Kilbourne's vol- 
ume, much commended by Connecticut scholars for its anti- 
quarian research. Among condensed sketches of a num)ber of 
local celebrities occurs the following: "Lyon, Matthew, Col- 
onel, a native of Ireland, came to this country in 1758, and was 
for several years a resident of this county. He emigrated to 
Vermont, and was there elected to Congress in 1797, and again 
in 1799; he soon after removed to Kentucky, and was sent to 
Congress from that State from 1803 to 181 1. His son, Chitten- 
den Lyon, was in Congress from Kentucky for eight years. 
Both of Colonel Lyon's wives were natives of this county, the 
first being a niece of Ethan Allen, the second a daughter of 
Governor Chittenden."^ 

The third notice is given by Mr. Cothren in his elaborate 
and valuable work. This author says : " It is asserted to have 

"WoodruflF's " History of the Town of Litchfield, 1845," pp. 29-30- 
'' Kilbourne's " Biographical History of the County of Litchfield, 
1851," p. 358. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 63 

been a common practice for poor foreigners who were unable 
to pay their passage money, to engage their passage by stipula- 
ting with the captain of the vessel which brought them to this 
country, that he might assign them in service to raise the 
money which was his due on arrival at the port of destination. 
Persons assigned in this manner were called redemptioners, and 
more than one was so held in Ancient Woodbury. Among 
the number was Matthew Lyon, a native of Ireland, who was 
assigned on his arrival in New York to Jabez Bacon, of Wood- 
bury, who brought him home, and after enjoying his services 
for some time, he assigned him for the remainder of the time 
of service to Hugh Hannah, of Litchfield, for a pair of stags 
valued at £12. By dint of sterling native talent, under these 
most disheartening circumstances, he fought his way to fame 
and eminence. * * * Lyon's success furnishes a striking 
example of the genius of the institutions of our favored 
country,"* 

The particulars mentioned by Colonel Lyon in the extracts 
from his speeches above quoted, will suffice to correct the error 
of Kilbourne in regard to the year of his arrival in this country. 
It is known that he went immediately to Connecticut after his 
arrival at New York from Europe. Mr. Cothren states that 
fact correctly. Lyon's declaration in 1798, that he had lived 
in Connecticut ten years, and in Vermont twenty-four, settles 
the question definitely as to the time he reached America. It 
was in the year of the Stamp Act, 1765. 

Ancient Woodbury, his first home in America, was one of 
the early settlements of Connecticut. Many pioneers had ar- 
rived there, even so far back as 1673. The charter of the town 



History of Ancient Woodbury, 1854," Vol. I, p. 320. 



64 MATTHEW LYON 

was granted in the spring of 1674, as the following minutes 
attest: "A court of election held at Hartford, May 14, 1674; 
This court grants that Paumperaug and the plantation 
there shall be called by the name of Woodbury, which town is 
freed from county rates fower yeares from this date."" Wood- 
bury, according to Cothren, was a place of extensive limits, 
and continued to be for years after its settlement one of the 
largest and most important towns in the western part of Con- 
necticut. Here, with flaunting banners and " sonorous metal," 
came Lafayette and the French army marching through the 
town to join Washington in the south. Here they stacked 
arms for rest, and the old chroniclers relate that the fair 
maidens of Woodbury danced on the village green with some 
of the handsome young soldiers from chivalrous France.* If 
we may judge of the prosperity of the town from that of one 
of its merchants, Jabez Bacon, to whom Lyon was apprenticed, 
it was a remarkably thriving place. "He was for years," Coth- 
ren says, " the sole merchant of this town, and all the neigh- 
boring towns ; and so large at times was his stock in trade that 
it is credibly reported merchants from New Haven sometimes 
visited Woodbury, and purchased from Jabez Bacon goods to 
retail afterwards in that city."^ He was a person of conse- 
quence, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, even among 
the business men of New York, whither he frequently went to 
lay in goods. His active young apprentice perhaps sometimes 



a Trumbull's " Colonial Records," p. 227. I was informed by the 
famous antiquarian collector and bookseller of New York, the late 
Mr. Sabin, that Trumbull would neither publish nor allow access dur- 
ing his lifetime to his " Colonial Records." 

»> " History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p. 213^ 

c " History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p. 352- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 65 

accompanied him, for in the letters of Lyon allusions to the 
habits and customs of the people of New York at that period 
are occasionally made, and particulars are given that would 
seem to have been derived from personal observation. 
Bacon dealt largely in pork, the " Old Red Store in the Hol- 
low," as his place was called, often being packed with dressed 
hogs which he shipped via " Darby Narrors," to New York. 
A bold operation is related of him, and if Lyon witnessed it, 
of which however there is no positive evidence, it must have 
produced a lasting impression on so apt a boy. It appears 
that the old trader turned an unsuccessful venture into a 
grand business achievement, and " put the screws " on the 
whole New York market. He had made a large shipment to 
the city, consisting of a choice lot of pork, and counted con- 
fidently on handsome profits. But when he reached there he 
could find no purchasers, even the houses he was in the habit 
of dealing with offered ruinously low figures for his meat. To 
sell at such prices was to incur heavy loss, to re-ship perishable 
meat to Derby, a total one. He soon found out the cause of 
the depression. Two immense shiploads of pork were ex- 
pected in that day from Maine. The person who gave him 
the information might have noticed an instantaneous change 
in Bacon's manner. Cothren, who relates the story as an un- 
questionable fact, says : " The old gentleman merely set his 
teeth firm, an ominous trick of his in a bargain, and left the 
store. He instantly took a horse, rode some six miles up the 
East River shore, to about what is now Blackwell's Island, 
boarded the sloops as they came along, and purchased every 
pound of their cargoes, staking his whole fortune for it. This, 
at that day, put the whole New York market in his hands, and 



66 MATTHEW LYON 

tradition says he cleared forty thousand dollars by this single 
operation."" This was a stroke of genius scarcely inferior, ex- 
cept in the magnitude of the operation, to that related of the 
famous Rothschild, who went out and watched the varying for- 
tunes of the battle of Waterloo until he saw the Old Guard of 
Napoleon broken and in retreat. Then the Napoleon of finance 
hastened to London in advance of the news and bought 
English consols, clearing out of hand five millions of dollars 
as his share of the victory. How fully the enthusiastic Lyon, 
already burning with business ardor, must have enjoyed this 
transaction of Bacon, whether as an eye-witness or as a listener 
to the story from the lips of the redoubtable Jabez, may be 
easily imagined. 

Ethan Allen, Seth Warner and Remember Baker had left 
Woodbury before Lyon became a resident of the place. But 
in their occasional visits to relatives and friends in the neigh- 
borhood, the three famous leaders and Lyon met as acquain- 
tances and friends. There is a tradition in Connecticut that 
Lyon went with them to Vermont, but this is a mistake. He 
continued to hve in Connecticut until 1774, several years after 
the others had become residents of the Hampshire Grants. 

From the first Lyon was an ardent patriot. Soon after he 
reached Woodbury a convention was held of all the towns of 
Litchfield county, and Woodbury was fully represented. 
Spirited measures were adopted by this body, and it was 
" resolved that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional, null and 
void, and that business of all kinds should go on as usual."" 
Patriotic excitement ran high among the hardy yeomanry of 



''Ibid, Vol. I, p. 353- 
f'lbid, Vol. I, p. 173- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 6^ 

the county. Notwithstanding their mutual esteem and con- 
geniality of temperament, a serious cause of disagreement now 
grew up between Jabez Bacon and Matthew Lyon. The boy 
was a fiery Whig; the man was suspected of being a Loyalist. 
General Benedict Arnold once preferred charges against Bacon, 
and ordered the Deputy Commissary-General, Peter Colt, to 
seize contraband goods of his at Derby which it was supposed 
Bacon was about to smuggle to the British on Long Island. 
Captain Isaac Tomlinson, of Woodbury, was involved in the 
same charge of disloyalty to the popular cause. They stood 
their trial and were acquitted." 

But Bacon was immersed in the pursuit of gain, Lyon more 
interested in the cause that " tried men's souls." Cothren says 
Bacon at his death was worth about half a million. Hinman, 
as we have already seen, placed the amount still higher, and rated 
him at nine hundred thousand dollars ; either sum was an enor- 
mous fortune in those primitive days. As the troubles of the 
times increased, Mr. Bacon finally allowed Lyon to look out 
for another employer, and after a year's residence in Wood- 
bury the young Whig was assigned to Hugh Hannah, of Litch- 
field.^ The consideration paid by Hannah was a pair of stags 



o " State Archives of Connecticut," Vol. XV, p. 66. 

''In "Reminiscences of Fair Haven," "written by Miss Emeline Gilbert, 
as communicated to her by Benjamin Franklin Gilbert," and published 
in Vol. I of the papers of the Rutland County Historical Society, 
pp. 146-7, there is what purports to be a sketch of Colonel 
Lyon. It is, however, only a fancy sketch. Among its other 
errors of fact, the following more glaring ones may be enu- 
merated: First. "At the early age of nine years he sailed for 
America, landing at New Haven, Conn." Not true. He was 
fifteen at the time named, and landed at New York. Second. " The 
captain sold him to a farmer for a pair of stag oxen." Not true. See 
" History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p. 320. Third. " At twenty- 



68 MATTHEW LYON 

of the value of ii2, old tenor, equivalent to $40. The price 
paid by Bacon originally is not known, but writers of that 
age on the apprentice system, both in the EngHsh and French 
colonies in America, inform us that common laborers were 
worth between forty and fifty dollars ; tradesmen and mechanics 
from sixty to one hundred dollars and upwards. Lyon had 
learned the trade of printer in Dublin, and although he was but 
fifteen years old, it is probable Bacon paid the ship captain 
about sixty dollars for his indentures. He received forty dol- 
lars, or its equivalent, from Hannah, or about two-thirds per- 
haps of the original price. 

Hugh Hannah, like Bacon, was a country merchant, but no 
suspicion of disloyalty to the patriots was ever whispered 
against him in the local chronicles of Connecticut. The writer 
has been informed by Mr. Cothren, the well known contributor 
to the early history of Litchfield county, that it is a tradition 
there that Matthew Lyon improved his leisure hours while with 
Mr. Hannah by a diligent course of study and reading. He 



one years of age he was free from his master, and made his way to 
the southern part of Vermont." Not true. He was free at eighteen, 
married at twenty-one, and did not go to Vermont until he was 
twenty-five years old. See Mrs. Roe's letter, and Lyon's speech in 
Congress, February ist, 1798. Whether the following statement has 
better claims to truth than the preceding ones is left to the decision 
of the reader: " With the floggings of an abusive master and mistress, 
and the stringency of the ' Blue Laws ' of Connecticut, the boy had 
but a sorry time in his new home. Possibly the master was not better 
suited, for he soon sold him to another man. The cliange was a for- 
tunate one for the lad, for in his second home he received better treat- 
ment and some schooling." Lyon's age and combative propensities 
render those " floggings " doubtful. A big muscular boy in his six- 
teenth year, and almost fiery enough to fight a rattlesnake and give 
him the first bite, was not a tempting customer to practice upon with 
birch or otherwise. The story looks apocryphal. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 69 

Ijecame well known at Litchfield, and made many friends there. 
The intense energy with which he always set about the busi- 
ness before him, and the impetuosity and frankness of his 
manners soon attracted favorable attention; the warmth of his 
affections and a riant, Celtic humor greatly promoted his 
popularity; while the daring courage and zeal with which he 
enlisted in the patriotic movements of the day brought him 
into contact and habits of intimacy with those famous men, 
Thomas Chittenden and Ethan Allen, the latter then resid- 
ing at Salisbury in the same county. He probably formed 
the conception of the extensive iron works he afterwards 
established in Vermont from an inspection of similar works 
at Salisbury, Connecticut, which were in part the prop- 
erty of his friend, Ethan Allen. " The first furnace in 
the Colony," Judge Church said, " was built at Lake- 
ville in Salisbury, in 1762, by John Hazleton and Ethan 
Allen, of SaHsbury, and Samuel Forbes, of Canaan."" 
The tenacity of the iron ore of Salisbury is said to 
be unequaled. At a later date the National Armories of 
Springfield and Harpers Ferry were supplied from this place, 
and the best anchors and chain cables of the Navy were also 
manufactured with Salisbury iron.^ 

Mrs. Roe, daughter of Matthew Lyon, informed the present 
writer, as heretofore stated, that her father's term of apprentice- 
ship lasted less than three years. " He worked out part of his 
time, and bought the rest of it," says his daughter, " and com- 



« Chief Justice Samuel Church's address at the Litchfield Centennial 
celebration, 1851. 
6 Ibid. 



70 MATTHEW LYON 

menced life for himself."" Her statement of this fact, hitherto 
a matter of guesswork among all writers, is important, and the 
only authoritative one on the subject. She was seventeen 
years old when Colonel Lyon died. She probably got the infor- 
mation from her father himself. According to Mrs. Roe, Mat- 
thew Lyon became a freeman in the year 1768. As he did not 
leave Connecticut until 1774, the last six or seven years of his 
life there were devoted to his own interests and pursuits. 
During the term of his apprenticeship, Mrs. Roe adds, " he 
had accumulated some property."'*. He consequently did not 
begin his career empty-handed, Lyon fell in love with a Miss 
Hosford, probably of Salisbury, the niece of Ethan Allen, and 
following the custom of Connecticut, where early marriages 
were the rule, the young couple were married shortly after Lyon 
attained his twenty-first year.** Canaan had been the residence 
at one time of Ethan Allen, and of his father, Joseph Allen, 
Possibly Miss Hosford may have lived there. But Mr. Coth- 
ren, the historian of Ancient Woodbury, informed the author 
that Hosford is a Salisbury and Cornwall name. 

Lyon's union with this young lady proved in every way 
happy. It supplied a new incentive to his exertions, and the 
cares of a family soon gave to the character of the impetuous 
youth the counterpoise of stabiHty of the matured man. Social 
advantages, in addition to domestic happiness, were acquired by 
his marriage into the influential Allen family, a family soon to 
become powerful in Vermont. This connection and the favor- 
able acceptance it met with on both sides establish the fact of 
Matthew Lyon's respectable standing in the community where 



"Letter of Mrs. E. A. Roe, of May 24th, 1881, 
''Ibid 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS JX 

he lived. The nephew by marriage of Ethan Allen, and the favor- 
ite associate of the hero of Ticonderoga and of the other leaders 
of the Green Mountain Boys from the origin of that celebrated 
martial clan, was an individual of no mean pretensions from 
his earliest manhood. The circumstance of his having begun 
his career as an apprentice attached no discredit to Lyon's 
name. It was only in the fierce party conflicts a quarter of a 
century later, when his talents had made him a formidable 
antagonist, that his pohtical opponents seized upon the fact 
as a weapon of ridicule to be used against him. Colonel Lyon 
in later life always spoke with pride of his respectable standing 
among the people of Connecticut. At the time of his alterca- 
tion with Roger Griswold, on the floor of Congress in 1798, he 
declared he was well acquainted with the people of that State, 
as the first part of his life in this country had been passed there. 
He not only knew them well, he said, but having lived among 
them for many years, he was confident that if he returned there 
and set on foot a printing press for six months, although the 
people were not fond of revolutionary principles, he could 
effect a revolution which would result in the overthrow of the 
Representatives in Congress from that State, since they were 
acting in opposition to the interests and opinions of nine- 
tenths of their constituents.* 

Notwithstanding the poverty and struggles of his boyhood, 
Matthew Lyon's career in Connecticut was an honorable one. 
Commencing as a redemptioner, and buying his freedom before 
the expiration of his term of service, he so conducted himself 
that every incident of his life there shows a certain law of de- 
velopment as its characteristic mark. When each year 

« Annals of Congress, 1798. 



72 MATTHEW LYON 

closed he was farther advanced than at its beginning. The 
lessons he learned in the first twelve months under old Jabez 
Bacon, the John Jacob Astor of the Paumperaug Valley, bore 
fruit afterwards when he became the founder of towns in Ver- 
mont and Kentucky. Resuming his studies the second year, 
when employed by Hugh Hannah, of Litchfield, the academic 
advantages, which had been cut short in Dublin, he revived 
either by studying self-imposed tasks, or under the tuition of a 
schoolmaster. He continued in this way to improve his mind 
and his fortunes until he completed his twenty-first year. Then 
his marriage to Miss Hosford took place. His avocations 
during the four succeeding years are not specifically mentioned 
in his literary remains, but they were sufficiently remunerative 
for the maintenance of a growing family. Probably he was 
employed in the iron works of Ethan Allen at Salisbury, as his 
knowledge of that business was displayed at Fair Haven. His 
associations were with men of the character of the Aliens and 
Chittendens. Matthew Lyon and Rev. Bethuel Chittenden, a 
well-known minister of the Episcopalian Church, and a brother 
of Thomas Chittenden, settled in the same neighborhood in 
\'ermont, Lyon in Wallingford and Bethuel Chittenden in 
Tinmouth, a few miles away. In fine, as far as the old chron- 
icles of Connecticut make mention of his name, Lyon appears 
to have been a growing figure during the whole time he re- 
sided in that Colony. 

Nor is his case a singular one. By their talents and services 
to the people, many redemptioners rose to high public posi- 
tions in various parts of the country. Daniel Dulany the 
elder, before referred to, who for forty years held the 
first place in the confidence of the Proprietary and 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS y}, 

the affections of the people of Maryland, was an Irish 
redemptioner." He was Attorney-General, Judge of the 
Admiralty, Commissary-General, Agent and Receiver- 
General and Councillor in the Province of Maryland during 
the successive administrations of Governors Bladen, Ogle and 
Sharpe. His son, the celebrated Daniel Dulany the younger, 
was the greatest lawyer in America before the Revolution. 
His opinion on the Stamp Act was quoted by Lord Chatham 
with the highest commendation in his famous speech in the 
House of Lords, May 27, 1774, on the bill authorizing the 
quartering of British soldiers on the inhabitants of Boston. 

George Taylor, a distinguished Revolutionary patriot, mem- 
ber of the Continental Congress, and one of the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence, was, as already mentioned, an- 
other Irish redemptioner.^ " Persons of sterling character and 
skill in the mechanic arts," says Rev. Dr. Foote, in his 
" Sketches of Virginia," " were found in these companies (re- 
demptioners), and having served their alloted time with credit 
and cheerfulness, became wealthy and held an honorable posi- 
tion in society, the descendants being imreproached for the 
faithful servitude of their ancestors."'^ In 1748 the great-grand- 
mother of the illustrious Stonewall Jackson came out as a re- 
demptioner from Europe to Maryland.*^ 

To such an ambitious young man as Lyon the opportunities 
for improvement were exceptionally favorable. Litchfield, 
from an early day, was a place of great intellectual activity, and 

"Rep. Men, Md. and D. C. p. 380. 

''Sanderson's " Lives of the Signers." 

tpoote's Sketches of Va., p. 263. 

ff" Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jack- 
son)," by his Wife, Mary Anna Jackson. New York: Harper Brothers. 
1892, p. 2. 



74 MATTHEW LYON 

the home of many men of note. The first Law School in the 
United States was established there, and long before Judge 
Story's Harvard School came into existence, over one thousand 
lawyers had been trained at Litchfield by that excellent man, 
Judge Tapping Reeve, and his able coadjutor, Judge James 
Gould, author of the famous book on pleading. Among the 
number were Oliver Wolcott, Uriah Tracy, Horatio Seymour, 
the elder, Peter B. Porter and John C. Calhoun." 



<* Chief Justice Samuel Church, of Connecticut, in his interesting 
address at the Litchfield Centennial celebration in 1851, makes honor- 
able mention of a great number of prominent men who had been 
students at the Law School in that place. It is a little singular that 
the name of John C. Calhoun is entirely omitted, although the address 
is replete with particulars of almost every other man of note who 
studied there. The reader can scarcely help thinking this was a 
studied omission, especially in view of the following inaccurate state- 
ment in the address: " Gen. Peter B. Porter was a graduate of Yale 
College and pursued the study of the law where so many of the noted 
men of the country have — at the Litchfield Law School. * * * As 
a member of the House of Representatives, he was associated with 
Henry Clay on a committee to consider the causes of complaint against 
Great Britain, and drew up the report of that committee, recommend- 
ing the declaration of the war of 1812," p. 65. Now John C. Calhoun, 
another graduate of Yale College and a student at the Litchfield Law 
School, was on this committee with General Porter, but his name is 
suppressed, although he and not General Porter wrote the report 
which Judge Church ascribes to the latter. Another misstatement by 
the orator was the naming of Henry Clay as a member of the commit- 
tee, whereas he was Speaker of the House and of course not on the 
committee at all. The committee referred to was the committee on 
Foreign Relations of the House of Representatives. General Porter 
was named as chairman, but at the first meeting of the committee, 
Mr. Calhoun being absent. General Porter moved that Mr. Calhoun 
be made chairman, as he himself was about to retire from Congress, 
and the motion was unanimously carried. The members of the com- 
mittee were Peter B. Porter, John C. Calhoun, Felix Grundy, John 
Randolph, of Roanoke, and Philip Barton Key. The report in ques- 
tion is published in " Calhoun's Works," Vol. V. In treating of so 
important an historical fact more accuracy on the part of Chief 
Justice Church was to have been expected. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 75 

"Even after Judge Gould's connection with the School," 
says Church, " an inspection of the catalogue will show that 
from it have gone out among the States of this Union a Vice- 
President of the United States, two Judges of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, forty Judges of the highest State 
Courts, thirteen Senators and forty-six Representatives in Con- 
gress, besides several Cabinet and Foreign Ministers."" 

Litchfield, originally called the " wild Western lands," was 
settled later than several other Connecticut towns. It was 
long regarded as a mere sterile region of mountains and flinty 
rocks, the habitation of warlike bands of Indians, which settlers 
avoided. When the first pioneers ascended the steep Litchfield 
hills, they came with axes in hand, cutting away a space for 
their log cabins and meeting-houses, and, as a protection 
against the weather, covering them when put up with rived 
clapboards of oak. 

They built stone fences about the clearings, and foddered 
their cattle on the snow, and slowly the nucleus of the famous 
town was formed. The distaff and spindle played a conspicu- 
ous part in their domestic economy, for like the queens of old, 
they " did spin with their hands," those staunch mothers and 
daughters of Litchfield. 

" Behold, 
The ruddy damsel singeth at her wheel, 
While by her side the rustic lover sits." 

The wedding suit is still growing on the backs of " individ- 
ually remembered sheep "'' when the bridal day approaches, 
and they are sheared, poor things, of their warm coats for the 

^ " The Age of Homespun," by Rev. Horace Bushndl. 



y6 MATTHEW LYON 

accommodation of the groom, and wrapped up and stitched in 
blankets to keep them from perishing with the cold. 

And now, when young Lyon, tempest-tossed thus far in the 
journey of his short life, ascends the hills of Litchfield and 
sits down within its gates, a simple, primitive society is already 
formed there into which he is hospitably received, and where 
he is made to feel at home. In season came the apple-paring 
and quilting frolics, excursions to the mountain tops after the 
haying, and other summer sports. In winter gathered round 
the big fire-place the neighbors pass social evenings, and while 
the blazing logs throw out a ruddy light, doughnuts and cider 
and hickor}' nuts are brought out of the cupboard in order to 
season discourse with entertainment, and drive away the look 
of alarm which the deacon and spinster have caused to overcast 
the Puritan Arcadia by remarking upon "the great danger com- 
ing to sound morals from the multiplication of turnpikes and 
newspapers."" 

Who is yon stripling cracking hickory nuts before the fire, 
and laughing so loudly at these dismal forebodings? Can it be 
Matthew Lyon, the future editor of the " Scourge of Aristoc- 
racy?" 

Ere Litchfield was, two or three generations (succeeding the 
landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth), had arisen, flourished 
and passed away. The stern Puritanism of the earlier days, 
sucli as Eaton and Davenport brought to New Haven, did not 
take root in the new settlement. Tlie Blue Laws were relaxed. 
Surplices, organs, and table at the west end of the church were 
no longer abominations in the eyes and ears of the people. 
The penal statutes against Quakers, and proscriptive of prayer 

<» " The Age of Homespun," by Rev. Horace Bushnell. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS yj 

books and the observance of Christmas, were a dead letter in 
the town of Litchfield. 

Nowhere else in New England did so liberal and tolerant 
a rehgious spirit prevail as in this county. The tone of feeling 
at Yale College had spread to the place, where a number of 
the alumni resided. Congregations worshipping with the 
liturgy of the Church of England were found on the same street 
with those of the Congregationalists, not only in Litchfield, but 
in Woodbur\% Salisbury and other townships of the county. 
•* Litchfield," President Dwight says, " is a handsome town. * 
* * There are two congregations, a Presbyterian and an 
Episcopal. The latter has three churches."** Sometimes the 
Puritan dislike of Archbishop Laud, whom the early Puritans 
styled the " short horns of Anti-Christ," and of the ritualistic 
ceremonies of Episcopalian worship, would break out in Litch- 
field, and vent itself against members of the Church of Eng- 
land there; but the great body of the people frowned down this 
spirit, and kept persecution at a distance. " A more tolerant 
and of course a better spirit," Chief Justice Church says, ''came 
with our fathers into this county, and it has ever since been 
producing here its legitimate effects, and in some degree has 
distinguished the character and the action of Litchfield county 
throughout its entire histor}'."^ 

There was less of doctrinal subtlety and Old Testament 
metaphysics among its pastors than among the Plymouth 
clerg}'. The moderate spirit of Oliver Wolcott the younger, 
and Tapping Reeve and James Gould, ofifset the sterner Puri- 
tanism of Lyman Beecher and John Cotton Smith. 



**" Dwight's Travels," Vol. II, p. 370. 
^ Church's Litchfield Centennial address. 



78 MATTHEW LYON 

Students from all of the Southern States, especially from 
South Carolina and Georgia, attended the Litchfield Law 
School, taking their place side by side, as a band of brothers, 
with their fellow students of the New England States, Sec- 
tional animosity had not yet effected a lodgment in the hearts 
of Americans. 

The restless spirit of adventure which had accompanied the 
first settlers to Litchfield, impelling them into untried fields, 
began to shoot out in new directions several years before the 
Revolutionary war. The tide first turned to Vermont, which 
was largely settled by the sons of this county. In the border 
wars of the Green Mountain Boys with New York and New 
Hampshire, and in the questionable intrigue of some of the 
Vermonters with the British enemy during the closing years 
of the Revolution, it is said on respectable authority that the 
policy adopted by Vermont in each instance was inspired from 
Litchfield. But the intrigue with the British reflects no credit 
on any of the parties to it. If the scheme originated at the 
house of the elder Governor Wolcott, perhaps Chief Justice 
Church, the eulogist of Wolcott, was not aware when he made 
the revelation that the Continental Congress in 1780 declared 
that intrigue " subversive of the peace and welfare of the 
United States."" 

It is often the case that the well kept secrets of 
one generation are inadvertently unearthed and brought to 
light by the chronicler of another generation, intent only on an 
individual narrative, and unconscious of the larger historical 
importance it may possess. The more recently published 
Haldimand correspondence, which discloses the secret negotia- 



« " De Puy's Green Mountain Boys," p. 409. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 79 

tions between the British and the Vermont leaders, does not 
connect the name of Wolcott with that Janus-faced diplomacy 
which so stirred the wrath of General Stark," and indeed of the 
people of Vermont themselves. An unsealed letter became the 
tell-tale witness, and the contrivers of the plot were put to 
their wit's end to appease the indignation it produced among 
the people. The letter contained an apology from the British 
commander, General St. Leger, for the killing of a Vermont 
soldier. Sergeant Tupper, by one of the enemy, in consequence, 
said St. Leger, of " my picket not knowing the situation."'' 
Extraordinary apology! Was the war over between Vermont 
and Great Britain? General St. Leger buried the Vermonter 
with a suspicious display of respect, and sent back his effects 
to General Enos, the commander of the Vermont troops. The 
letter which he also sent fell into the wrong hands, the matter 
was brought before the legislative body, and the Green Moun- 
tain Boys scented treason in the air. The fine Machiavellian 
hand of Ira Allen was required to allay the rising storm. 

" In her (Vermont's) dilemma, " says Church, " her most 
sagacious men resorted to the councils of their old friends of 
Litchfield county, and it is said that her final course was shaped, 
and her designs accomplished by the advice of a confidential 
council assembled at the house of Governor Wolcott in this 
(village.'"' 

Vermont has been claimed by some Connecticut writers as 
the child of Litchfield county. The principal founders of the 

"Prof. James Davie Butler's address before Vermont Historical 
Society, 184)6. " Vermont Historical Society," Vol. II, " Haldimand 
Papers." 

^ " Vermont Historical Gazetteer," Vol. I, p. 819. 

« Church's Centennial address at Litchfield, 1851. 



i8o MATTHEW LYON 

hardy little State emigrated from that county. Ethan Allen 
and his several brothers, as well as Thomas Chittenden, Seth 
Warner, Matthew Lyon, Remember Baker, the Galushas, Chip- 
mans, and other Vermont magnates all hailed from Connecticut. 
Among these distinguished Litchfieldians, four became gover- 
nors of Vermont, three senators in Congress, and several of 
them members of the House of Representatives, including in 
the last category the subject of this biography. 

Of Matthew Lyon's marriage with Miss Hosford. four 
children were born, Ann, James, Pamelia and Loraine, names 
given to them for members of the Allen family. Ann. the 
oldest child, married John Messenger, of Vermont. They emi- 
grated to Kentucky in 1799, and Mrs. Messenger lived to be 
an octogenarian." James was sent by his father to Philadel- 
phia and placed under charge of the illustrious Benjamin 
Franklin. Following in the footsteps of his father, he learned 
the trade of a printer. He returned to Vermont an active 
business man. During the latter years of his father's residence 
in that State James rendered him valuable assistance in con- 
ducting his newspaper, "The Farmer's Library," and his maga- 
zine called "Tlie Scourge of Aristocracy;" also in managing his 
father's extensive iron works, mills and other interests at Fair 
Haven during the latter's absence in the State Legislature, and 
afterwards as a member of Congress. James Lyon, honored 
with the friendship and correspondence of JeflFerson, subse- 
quently became a citizen of South Carolina, where he died in 
1824. Pamelia married Dr. George Cadwell, of Hampton, 
New York, and removed to Kentucky with her husband and 
father. Loraine, the youngest child of Colonel Lyon's first mar- 



o Letter of Mrs. Roe. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 8l 

riage, also accompanied her father to Kentucky, but con- 
tracted a fever and died very soon after her arrival in Eddy- 
ville, at the age of seventeen. She was the first white person 
whose death occurred in the new settlement,* and her early 
demise proved a severe afifliction to her father and other rela- 
tives. 

According to the best authorities Ethan Allen, the oldest of 
the famous brothers, set out for the valley of Lake Champlain 
in the year 1766^. Ira Allen, the youngest brother, followed 
in lyyiS The latter went with Remember Baker to Onion 
river in 1772 to survey lands they had there purchased. Sub- 
sequently these settlers formed an association which was 
known as " The Onion River Land Company." The members 
were Ethan Allen, Remember Baker, Heman Allen, Zimri 
Allen and Ira Allen.** They purchased an immense tract em- 
bracing over 300,000 acres between Ferrisburgh and the 
Canada Hne, upon the Lake shore, which comprised the greater 
part of eleven townships. But the tide of war bore the settlers 
hither and thither during the Revolution. After the peace Ira 
Allen returned, and did much to develop the country, especially 
in the neighborhood of Winooski Falls. 

These pioneers were soon followed by many of their former 
neighbors in Connecticut. Benning Wentworth, Governor of 

"■ Mrs. Roe's letter. 

'' " Vermont Historical Magazine," Vol. I, p. 561. 

<= Ihid, Vol. I, p. 770. 

d" Bennington was granted in the year 1749 by Benning Wentworth, 
Governor of New Hampshire, and from him received its name. In 
1764 Captain Robinson, a respectable inhabitant of Hardwick in the 
Province of Massachusetts Bay, having purchased a tract of land, be- 
gan the settlement of Vermont, on the western side of the Green 
Mountains in this place. He was soon followed by a number of 
planters; and the township was filled up with great rapidity."— 
Dwight's Travels, II, 402'- j. 



82 MATTHEW LYON 

New Hampshire, had discovered a rich placer in the country 
west of the Green Mountains, and for many years he was in the 
habit of issuing patents or grants of land in the Valley of Lake 
Champlain, from the proceeds of which land speculations he 
amassed a large fortune. Hence the name of New Hampshire 
Grants. Settlers flocked in from Massachusetts, New Hamp- 
shire, and especially from Connecticut. 

Among these early pioneers came Thomas Chittenden, from 
Salisbury, Connecticut, destined to be the first and most fam- 
ous Governor of Vermont ; and Matthew Lyon, from Litchfield, 
whose services to the State were only second in importance to 
those of Chittenden, of the two Aliens, and of Seth Warner; 
and whose achievements in the wider sphere of the National 
House of Representatives were greater than those of any of 
the early Vermonters. The annals of the country would be 
incomplete without a narrative of the part taken by this born 
leader of men during the administrations of Adams, Jefferson 
and Madison. It is not surprising that Mr. Wharton in his valu- 
able work, "The State Trials of the United States," should call 
attention to the want of a biography of Matthew Lyon as a 
■deficiency in American literature. 

A pioneer by nature, Lyon rejoiced in frontier life, and took 
as much delight as Daniel Boone himself in threading the soli- 
tude of the trackless forest. But while Boone remained always 
a forester, Lyon was both forester and statesman, at home in 
the wilds on Lake Champlain and the forests of Kentucky, and 
distinguished as a debater and originator of sound measures 
in Congress. He was captivated by the glowing accounts sent 
back to Connecticut by the advance guard in Vermont. 

The country in fact deserved the praise lavished on it by the 
land speculators. It had remained a wilderness ever since 
1609, when the celebrated Samuel Champlain, Father of New 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 83 

France, discovered the lake which bears his name, and rashly- 
participated with the Algonquins in that famous battle with the 
Iroquois, which, from the mighty results traceable directly to 
it as a cause, deserves to be ranked, not as an insignificant 
skirmish between a handful of savages, but rather as one of the 
decisive battles of the world. From that day forth the Iro- 
quois hated the name of a Frenchman, and the powerful Con- 
federacy of the Five Nations did more to drive France from the 
new world than was accomplished in the same direction by the 
arms of England on the Heights of Abraham, when Wolfe fell 
in the arms of victory, and Montcalm closed his illustrious 
career in defeat. Middle space between the territories of fierce 
Iroquois and Algonquins, and afterward between New France 
and New England, scarcely less savage in their wars with each 
other than the Indians, the Valley of Lake Champlain was the 
dark and bloody ground of colonial history. Its solitude was 
unbroken save by the crack of the rifle, or the war-whoop of the 
savage as his tomahawk descended on his victim. " Every 
rustle of a shaken leaf " — even after the New England settlers 
began to arrive — " seemed an Indian tread; every tree an In- 
dian covert; every window a mark for his rifle."" 

Matthew Lyon read with admiration of this magnificent 
valley, and its Green Mountains dedicated from the dawn of 
creation to the sublime and beautiful in nature ; how the terri- 
tory just reclaimed from the savages was opened up to the uses 
of civilized man; how its lakes and rivers were shaded by 
forests of pine, elm and chestnut; the uplands timbered with a 
luxuriant growth of maple, beech and birch; and the moun- 
tains, lifting their peaks among the clouds, were covered from 
base to sky-piercing summit in a tropical mantle of evergreens. 

Prof. James Davie Butler's address before Vermont Historical 
Society, 1846. 



84 MATTHEW LYON 

Moose, deer, otter, beaver, and other animals supplied the 
hunter with game; and the lakes, rivers and smaller streams 
were replenished with fish of good quality and in great variety. 
In the spring of 1774 Lyon and his family bade friends in 
Litchfield adieu, and set out for the new country across the 
Green Mountains. Strange to say, no writer appears to be 
informed of the precise time of his arrival in Vermont. But 
the date is fixed by the Colonel himself in the brief narrative 
of his career in Connecticut and Vermont which he recounted 
in 1798 on the floor of Congress. This narrative, and the let- 
ters and documents placed in the hands of the present writer 
by his descendants, conclusively show that he went to Vermont 
during the same spring that Thomas Chittenden emigrated. 
It is not unlikely that Thomas Chittenden, Matthew Lyon and 
Jonathan Spafford, with their several families, formed part of 
one emigrant train. Governor Chittenden set out in the 
month of May, 1774." In Mr. John Strong's graphic sketch 
of Addison, Vermont, it is said some of the early Litchfield 
emigrants took the route through Albany across the Hudson 
to Fort Gurney, and thence through Lake George to Ticonde- 
roga, and down Lake Champlain to their respective destina- 
tions.^ But it is believed Chittenden and Lyon carried in 
their train household wares and farming utensils, and it is, 
therefore, more probable their route was northward through 
Goshen, Cornwall, and Canaan, Connecticut, across the line 
into Massachusetts, and thence through Sheffield, " delightfully 
romantic Stockbridge," and Williamstown, famous for its Col- 
lege, Alma Mater of President Garfield, whence they passed the 



<» Hon. David Read in " Vermont Historical Magazine," Vol. I. 
* Strong's sketch, Ibid, Vol. I, p. 7. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 85 

border into Vermont. Fourteen miles beyond the Massachu- 
setts line lies Bennington. Thence to Wallingford, via Man- 
chester, the pioneers took their way. At this point Matthew 
Lyon stopped, made his pitch of lares and penates, and looked 
round on earth, sky and lake, horizon of his first home in the 
wilderness. Bidding God speed to his fellow-travelers, he 
beheld the hardy pioneers as they moved off, no doubt on his 
side with sorrowful heart, for Thomas Chittenden, destined to 
become his father-in-law at a later date, was one of those 
rugged captains and noble souls in life's battle whose con- 
versation was a joy to all who were brought into his society. 
Wallingford, Lyon's first abode in the Hampshire Grants, is 
situated on Otter Creek in the southeastern section of Rutland 
county, between thirty and forty miles from Ticonderoga. 
After parting company with Lyon, Thomas Chittenden and his 
fellow pioneers continued the journey to Ticonderoga, and 
thence down Lake Champlain to Onion or Winooski river, 
and up that river to Williston, a spot of wonderful beauty, sixty 
or seventy miles further north than where Lyon and his Httle 
family had pitched their tents. 

The celebrated President Dwight, of Yale College, was in 
the habit of spending vacations in traveling through New 
England and New York. He visited Vermont several times, 
and has left graphic pictures of the Green Mountains and of the 
Valley of Lake Champlain. His sketches of the hardy race of 
men who settled the country are drawn in colors much less 
bright. He took notes and collected materials during his 
journeys for a book which was published in four volumes, his 
well-known " Travels in New England and New York." Such 
is the uncertain fate of literary efforts, that Dr. Dwight, who 



86 MATTHEW LYON 

spent a lifetime in writing that ponderous work " Theology 
Explained and Defended," besides hundreds of sermons and 
long ambitious poems, as the solid edifice upon which his fame 
might rest, is now best remembered by the production of his 
leisure hours, written perhaps as a relief from more exhausting 
occupations. What he prized most, and fondly thought 
would win immortality, has become nearly obsolete, while his 
modest book of travels has not only made his name famous in 
the world of letters, but deservedly ranks as an American 
classic. It is chaste in style, eloquent in descriptions of natural 
scenery, and valuable to the historical student as an animated 
picture of the manners, customs and modes of life in New 
England and New York nearly a century ago. In a review of 
this work Robert Southey said : " The work before us, though 
the humblest in its pretences, is the most important of his 
writings,, and will derive additional value from time, whatever 
may become of his poetry and of his sermons."*^ " He has 
done more," Chancellor Kent said, " than any other person to 
explain and recommend to the respect of mankind, the wisdom 
of the institutions of New England, and the progress of her 
settlements, her geography, her history and her biography."^ 

Dr. Dwight was the greatest, as well as the most delightful, 
of the New England schoolmasters. Had Daniel Webster 
enjoyed the inestimable advantage of his instructions, the 
Jupiter Tonans of American eloquence might have boasted, as 
Alexander the Great said of Aristotle, that the wisest of his 
Countrymen had been his instructor. But Dr. Dwight had for 
pupil John C. Calhoun, and moulded the plastic genius of the 

a Robert Southey in " London Quarterly Review," Vol. XXX, p. i. 
6 Kent's address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, New Haven, 
1831. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 87 

South Carolina prodigy with consummate art, and a parental 
fondness born of admiration of his pupil's shining parts. 
" That young man," he said one day to a friend, " has talents 
enough to be President of the United States."*^ 

In the year 1798 Dr. Dwight visited Wallingford, Vermont, 
the home of Matthew Lyon in the new settlement from 1774 to 
1777. He also visited Fair Haven, the flourishing little town 
of which Colonel Lyon was the founder and most distinguished 
citizen. Extending his journey the Doctor, at a later day, 
visited the plantation of Governor Chittenden in WilUston. 
He gives us glimpses of these places. 

" Thursday, September 26 (1798), we rode to Rutland before 

dinner, twenty miles. Our journey lay along the principal 

branch of Otter Creek. The mountain on the west having 

terminated in Wallingford, we escaped from our defile into an 

open and more agreeable country. Wallingford contained in 

1790, 536; in 1800, 912; in 1810, 1,316 inhabitants."^ During 

this trip the Doctor's morality suffered a shock at one of these 

towns, name not given in the text. " We lodged at an inn, 

where we found, what I never before saw in New England, a 

considerable number of men assembled on Saturday evening, 

for the ordinary purposes of tavern-haunting. They continued 

their orgies until near two o'clock in the morning, scarcely 

permitting us to sleep at all. Early the next morning, these 

wretches assembled again for their Sunday morning dram, 

when we left the inn and went to a neighboring house as early 

as possible, disgusted with the manners of so irreligious a 

family."" 

«R. M. T. Hunter's "Life of Calhoun, 1843^" p. 6, 
* " Dwight's Travels," Vol. II, pp. 410-ri. 
o Ibid, Vol. II, p. 411. 



88 MATTHEW LYON 

The Doctor's Puritan zeal bridles up at any comparison be- 
tween Connecticut and Vermont. " I shall further be told, 
perhaps," exclaims the good Timothy, like some haughty old 
Athenian waving away from the Parthenon garish maidens of 
C^hios or Rhodes, *' that the inhabitants of Vermont are, in a 
great proportion, either such as were originally citizens of Con- 
necticut, or children of those citizens." But the schoolman 
is ready with his distinction: "The men who originated the 
policy of Connecticut were a very different class of human 
beings from those who formed the system of Vermont. Intel- 
ligence and piety flourished under the fostering care of those 
who founded Connecticut. They are growing up in Vermont 
in spite of these founders."" It may be doubted, however, 
malgre the learned Doctor, whether Vermont was less fortu- 
nate than the land of Steady Habits for being free of the Blue 
Laws. " Wednesday, October 3d," he says, " we left West 
Haven, and rode through Fair Haven. * * * Most of the 
road was tolerably good. Fair Haven is geneally a rough, dis- 
agreeable township. The only exception to this remark, within 
our view, was on its southern limit along Pulteney river, where 
there is a small tract of handsome intervals. The only cheer- 
ful object which met our view before we reached the river was 
a collection of very busy mills and other waterworks." 
These mills and waterworks were the property of Mat- 
thew Lyon, but the Puritan saint does not condescend 
to name the Democratic sinner. Matthew about that 
time was in jail as a Republican incorrigible. " Fair Haven, 
in 1790, included West Haven, and contained 545 inhabitants; 



«/fcid, Vol. II, p. 473- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 89 

in 1800, there were in Fair Haven 411, and in 1810, 645. Both 
of these townships are small."" 

In the year 1806 the Doctor made another tour through 
Vermont, and gives us a glimpse of Governor Chittenden's 
settlement. " In Jericho we passed by a beautiful plantation, 
formerly the property of Governor Chittenden, now of Major- 
General Chittenden, one of the members of the American Con- 
gress."^ This Major-General was Martin Chittenden, brother- 
in-law of Matthew Lyon by his second marriage, and his close 
friend. In one of Lyon's letters to President Josiah Quincy, 
of Harvard University, another of his intimate friends, he con- 
cludes by saying: " Give my respects to my friends, and as- 
sure them I have not forgotten them. I write by this mail to 
my brother Chittenden, and shall not repeat to him what I 
have said to you. With affectionate regard, I am, 

" Truly Your Friend, 

" M. Lyon." 
President Quincy and General Chittenden were then in Con- 
gress, 1 81 2, and Colonel Lyon was in Kentucky. 

" Onion river/' Dr. Dwight says, " furnishes several romantic 
scenes. * * * The estate of Hon. Mr. Chittenden is the most 
beautiful spot on its banks; and probably one of the most fer- 
tile in the American Union. To a person satisfied with rural 
solitude it must be a charming residence."" This romantic 
spot was the home in her girlhood of Beulah Chittenden, 
second wife of Matthew Lyon. 

But while Dr. Dwight gives an interesting account of the 
infant se ttlement of the Hampshire Grants, it cannot be re- 

<»/fcj(/, Vol. II, p. 455. 

b Ibid, Vol. II, p. 429. 

«"Dwight's Travels." Vol. II, p. 433. 



9© MATTHEW LYON 

garded as an impartial one. This eminent scholar had the 
fault, sometimes found among persons with set ideas, of not 
thinking as well of their neighbors as they might. Ethan Allen 
was one of his inveterate aversions. For all Frenchmen the 
good Doctor's dislike was still more marked. Of the hero of 
Ticonderoga he thus speaks: 

" This man was born at Salisbury, in Connecticut. His 
education was confined, and furnished him with a mere smat- 
tering of knowledge. * * * Licentious in his disposition, 
he was impatient of the restraints either of government or 
religion, and not always submissive to those of common 
decency. * * * A little circle of loose persons will always 
gather about a man of this description. Allen was surrounded 
by a herd of such men. * * * ^^ length he determined to 
become an instructor of the public. This was a fatal step. He 
neither understood the subject, nor knew how to write. '' * 
He named his book the * Oracles of Reason,' after a wretched 
publication of Charles Blount, one of the pertest and weakest 
of all the British infidels, but probably Allen's favorite author, 
and not improbably the only one whose works he had read. 
This was the first formal publication in the United States 
openly directed against the Christian religion. When it came 
out I read as much of it as I could summon patience to read. 
Decent nonsense may probably amuse an idle hour; but brutal 
nonsense can be only read as an infliction of penal justice. The 
style was crude and vulgar; and the sentiments were coarser 
than the style. The arguments were flimsy and unm.eaning, 
and the conclusions were fastened upon the premises by mere 
force."" 

The Doctor names Salisbury as Ethan Allen's birthplace. But 
Ancient Woodbury, Litchfield, and other places have also 



« " Dwight's Travels," Vol. II, pp. 406-7. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 9I 

claimed the same honor. "He was a native of this county," says 
Chief Justice Church in his Litchfield Centennial address ; but 
he, too, must have his fling at the old hero, for he tells us : "The 
town of his nativity has been a matter of dispute, but it is not 
a question worth solving," If Ethan Allen was " licentious in 
his disposition," Dr. Dwight should have furnished proof of 
so grave a charge. His ingenuous nature rendered his life 
like an open book, but nowhere is licentiousness nor a viola- 
tion of the " restraints of common decency " to be found in the 
acts of Ethan Allen. " The herd of loose persons," with whom 
the Doctor contemptuously surrounded him, were the Green 
Mountain Boys, rough foresters, it is true^ but so were the 
Spartans of antiquity ; so were the inhabitants of the Swiss Can- 
tons in the age of William Tell ; and so were many of the early 
American Colonists — those " embattled farmers " whose valor 
contributed chiefly to the independence of the United States. 
The services of the Green Mountain Boys were freely and 
effectively rendered in the Revolution. Seth Warner was one 
of the persons that surrounded Allen, and indeed was his own 
cousin. Warner's services at the battle of Bennington have 
placed his name with that of the hero of the victory. General 
Stark, in the first rank of the soldiers of the Revolution. Such 
a man deserved better requital than to be classed opprobriously 
among a " herd of loose persons." Matthew Lyon was another 
of the associates of Ethan Allen, having married his niece, and 
Lyon was neither a roysterer nor "tavern-haunter," but a 
strictly sober and highly intellectual man.® 

Allen's infidehty deserved censure, and Dr. Dwight is not 
too severe on his quixotic " Oracles of Reason," over which 
happily the veil of oblivion has long since fallen. The Doctor 
is perhaps mistaken in ascribing to Charles Blount the respon- 

« Letter of Mr. F. A. Wilson, of Kentucky. 



92 MATTHEW LYON 

sibility for his theological vagaries. Allen's model was 
Thomas Young, the Philadelphia sceptic. They were acquain- 
tances and correspondents, and Allen was a close reader of 
Young's infidel publications. 

Even the glorious achievement of this whirlwind of a man 
in capturing Ticonderoga is slightingly dismissed by Dr. 
Dwight. " In the bustling part of the American Revolution," 
he says, "Colonel Allen made some noise." Was there a quiet 
part? Is bustle or noise out of place in a revolution? Who 
has heard of that paradox in resounding war? A cold recital 
of the facts of such a soul-stirring achievement of American 
valor as the capture of Ticonderoga, premised by a paradox, 
is all that the hero of such an enterprise receives at the hands 
of the Yale philosopher. 

Dr. Dwight is equally severe on the State government. The 
town of Vergennes was founded by Ethan Allen, and received 
its name from him as a tribute to the Count de Vergennes, 
" whom," says the Doctor, " ardent, uninformed and short- 
sighted Americans at that time believed to be a friend of this 
country." 

Whether on account of its French name, or other equally 
repellent cause, the Doctor conceived an antipathy for the 
place. " A traveler," he says, " is compelled to laugh at this 
freak of Colonel Allen. * * * Vergennes was indeed in- 
tended for the seat of government, and so are half a dozen other 
places. Whether any of them will ever become what they so 
ardently covet ; whether there will be a seat of government in 
the State, or whether the Legislature will continue to roll on 
wheels from town to town, as they have hitherto done; no 
human foresight can determine. The Legislature itself has 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 93 

been at least equally freakish with the projector of this city; 
and seems at present little more inclined to settle than any 
other bird of passage."* 

Vermont and Vermonters had evidently fallen from Dr. 
Dwight's good graces. A better acquaintance with their his- 
tory, their struggles, privations, and final success in establish- 
ing their State might have softened the Doctor's splenetic 
temper, and saved him from the utterance of many things 
about them that were ungracious, and of some things that were 
not just. A single further extract will serve to illustrate his 
acerbity in writing about the early settlers of Vermont. " A 
considerable number," he writes, " of those who first claimed 
and acquired influence in the State of Vermont during its early 
periods, were men of loose principles and loose morals. They 
were either professed infidels, Universalists, or persons who 
exhibited the morals of these two classes of mankind. We 
cannot expect, therefore, to find the public measures of Ver- 
mont distinguished at that time by any peculiar proofs of in- 
tegrity or justice."* 

After these animadversions so unexpected from such a writer, 
it is reassuring to be told in conclusion that ** the religious, and 
of course the moral, state of Vermont is improving." '^ 

Not thus speaks the American Goldsmith, Washington Irv- 
ing, of the leader of the Green Mountain Boys. After referring 
to the border strifes between Yorkers and the inhabitants of 
the Hampshire Grants, down to the period of the Revolution, 
Washington Irving says: " Thus Ethan Allen was becoming a 



«" Dwight's Travels," Vol. II, p. 431. 

^Ibid, Vol. II, p. 471. 
'Ibid, Vol. II, p. 474- 



94 MATTHEW LYON 

kind of Robin Hood among the mountains when the present 
crisis changed the relative position of things as if by magic. 
Ethan Allen at once stepped forward a patriot, and volunteered 
with his Green Mountain Boys to serve in the popular cause. 
He was well fitted for the enterprise in question by his ex- 
perience as a frontier champion, his robustness of mind and 
body, and his fearless spirit. He had a kind of rough elo- 
quence also that was very effective with his followers. ' His 
style,' says one, who knew him personally, ' was a singular 
compound of local barbarisms, scriptural phrases, and oriental 
wildness; and though unclassic and sometimes ungrammatical, 
was highly animated and forcible.' "'^ 

After Ethan Allen came back from captivity, he visited Gen- 
eral Washington at Valley Forge, and was received by the 
Father of his Country with distinguished marks of attention. 
So much interest did Washington feel in him that he sought 
preferment for Allen in the Continental Army, and wrote a 
strong letter on the subject to the President of Congress, an 
unusual step for him to take in behalf of any one. " His forti- 
tude and firmness," he wrote, " seem to have placed him out 
of the reach of misfortune. There is an original something 
about him that commands admiration, and his long captivity 
and sufferings have only served to increase if possible his en- 
thusiastic zeal. He appears very desirous of rendering his 
services to the States, and of being employed ; and at the same 
time he does not discover any ambition for high rank."'' 

Timothy Dwight's opinion of Ethan Allen evidently was not 
shared by George Washington, or Washington Irving. 



o Irving's " Life of Washington," Vol. I, pp. 404-5. 
^Ibid, Vol. Ill, p. 37S. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 95 

Of the French the Doctor spoke with still greater acrimony 
than of Ethan Allen or of the Green Mountain Boys. But it 
should be remembered he was a Federalist in politics, and 
these unlooked for explosions of wrath on the part of a man 
distinguished at other times for gentleness of disposition and 
urbanity of manners, may be attributed rather to party excite- 
ment than to a purpose to treat others unfairly. 

What Dr. Dwight says in relation to the French setting up 
unfounded claims to the country along Lake Champlain is not 
supported by history or public law. Samuel Champlain dis- 
covered Lake Champlain on the 4th of July, 1609, and pushed 
his explorations as far south as Ticonderoga and Lake George, 
four years before the Dutch settled New York, and eleven 
years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. By the laws 
of nations, universally recognized, the discovery of lands in 
the new world vested undisputed title to those lands in the 
nation under the authority of which the discoverer had set out. 

If Dr. Dwight's strictures on Ethan Allen are met by the 
conflicting testimony of General Washington, his animadversions 
upon the French are confronted by the same high authority. 
In a letter to Colonel Laurens, sent out as Special American En- 
voy to France to solicit assistance in the crisis of the Revolu- 
tion^ Washington said: "This country has been brought to a 
crisis which renders immediate, efficacious assistance from 
abroad indispensable to its safety. It is impossible to extricate 
ourselves from our embarrassments. There is an absolute 
necessity of speedy and ample relief, a relief not within the 
compass of our means."*^ He also wrote to Dr. Franklin, 
then American Minister to France, and said : " The opposition 

"Diplomatic Correspondence Am. Rev. IX, 211. Sparks's Writings 
of Washington VII. 370. 



96 MATTHEW LYON 

of America to England must soon cease, if our allies cannot 
afford us that effectual aid, particularly in money and in a 
naval superiority, which is now solicited,"" In another and 
still more urgent letter Washington declared: " If France 
delays a powerful and timely aid in this critical posture of our 
affairs, it will avail us nothing that she attempt it hereafter. 
In a word, we are at the end of our tether, and now or never 
our deliverance must come."'' 

And it did come, though Dr. Dwight seemed to have for- 
gotten it. France sent us ten thousand men, a powerful fleet, 
and eight millions of money, and with this timely aid the 
Revolution was closed at Yorktown in victory. When the 
intelligence of Comwallis's surrender reached Europe, France 
went wild with joyous acclamations, and Paris was illuminated 
for three nights in succession. Salutes of guns, bonfires, and 
civic and military processions witnessed the enthusiasm that 
welled up from the hearts of the French people in every city 
and town in the kingdom. 

But Dr. Dwight's mind was evidently warped by the peculiar 
religious opinions of which he was the ablest expounder in his 
day. Could he only have emancipated his great intellectual 
powers from such a thraldom, and viewed the events and 
persons he so eloquently portrays, as a philosopher and as a 
statesman, he would have done more justice to the patriotic 
services of the Green Mountain Boys and their intrepid leaders, 
and recognized in Matthew Lyon the extraordinary ability 
which, as I shall show in subsequent chapters, raised kim to 
eminence, and entitled him to the gratitude of posterity. 



«The Writings of Washington, VII, pp. 379, etc. 
^Ibid. Dip. Cor. Am. Rev. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 97 



CHAPTER III. 

HAMPSHIRE GRANTS CONTROVERSY — ETHAN ALLEN TAKES 
TICONDEROGA — LYON IN THE STORMING PARTY — NEXT 
SEES SERVICE IN CANADA UNDER SETH WARNER THE JERI- 
CHO AFFAIR — RETREAT FROM TICONDEROGA — AMERICAN 
DEFEAT AT HUBBARDTON — LYON GUIDES ST. CLAIR SAFELY 
TO HUDSON RIVER. 

T N the spring of 1774 Lyon purchased lands in the township of 
Walhngford, Vermont, afterwards known as Lyon's planta- 
tion, and took up his residence upon this purchase situated 
about thirty miles from Ticonderoga." In Hiland Hall's 
" Early History of Vermont,'' that author mentions a patent 
for 32,000 acres of land in the townships of Clarendon and 
Wallingford issued by Governor Tryon, of New York, to Ben- 
jamin Spencer, of Durham, on the 7th of January, 1772. But 
Mr. Hall was in error. There was no New York patent in 
1772 for land in Wallingford. In a letter to Lord Dartmouth, 
dated New York, July i, 1773, Governor Tryon says: " There 
are fifteen townships granted by New Hampshire, and which 
have been confirmed by New York,"** and " that there are one 
hundred and fourteen townships of six miles square granted by 
New Hampshire besides those fifteen which have been con- 
firmed by New York."*' The fifteen townships are enumerated, 

o Vermont Historical Society Collections, Vol. I, p. 16. 
6 Doct. Hist. N. Y., Vol. IV, p. 506. 
c Ibid, Vol. IV, p. 507. 



98 MATTHEW LYON 

and Wallingford is not one of them; but directly following is 
another list of twelve, prefaced by the following remark: 
" Townships for which confirmations have not issued, altho' 
long since advised to be granted." In this list appears the 
name of Wallingford." 

Title by intrusion or occupancy, or what a celebrated son of 
Vermont of a later age, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, called 
" Squatter Sovereignty," was the best title many early settlers 
could boast. To this class belonged one Scott, the first comer 
in Wallingford,^ whose rude log cabin is described in verse by 
Tom Rowley, the Shoreham bard, writer of unpremeditated 
homely lays which stirred the hearts of the Green Mountain 
Boys only less deeply than the wild eloquence of Ethan Allen. 

Abraham Jackson, commonly called the Deacon, was a co-n- 
temporary of Lyon, arriving at Wallingford some months be- 
fore him, being the first legal settler under a Hampshire Grants 
patent. But John Hopkins, of Salem, New York, whose piety 
was once so scandalized by a profane laborer that he drove him 
out of the field with a pitchfork, preceded Jackson by nearly 
three years, having his home on West Hill. The Ives family 
were well represented in primitive Wallingford, Abraham Ives, 
Lent Ives and Nathaniel Ives being contemporaries and neigh- 
bors of Matthew Lyon. Daniel and Benjamin Bradley, and 
Joseph Randall and Joseph Jackson also figured among the 
early settlers of the town. A particular friend of Matthew 
Lyon lived in the next township. This was Rev. Bethuel Clilt- 
tenden, of St. Stephen's parish, in Tinmouth, brother of the 
Governor. Here, too, were found at that day Vermont pio- 

'^Ibid, p. 477- 

»V. H. M., Vol. III. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 99 

neers whose names are handed down among the pillars of the 
infant State. Samuel Mattocks, Stephen Royce, Elisha Clark 
and Samuel Chipman, to mention no more, were there to 
spread the salt of Puritan virtue in the wilderness, and to re- 
claim it from savage occupation. The last named, Samuel 
Chipman, was an honest blacksmith, whose famous son, Na- 
thaniel Chipman, became a judge and senator of renown. He 
was in frequent rivalry in politics with Matthew Lyon, and once 
had a sharp personal collision with him, Chipman being as 
uncompromising a Federalist as Lyon was a stern Democrat. 
A daughter of the Nathaniel Ives here mentioned, Mrs. Me- 
linda Chatterton, survived almost to the present age, dying in 
1867, in her 97th year; although a daughter of Matthew Lyon, 
Mrs. Eliza A. Roe, widow of Rev. John Roe, of Illinois, died 
twenty years later, in 1887. I^ Mrs. Chatterton was a delight- 
ful reminiscent of early Wallingford, counting her long years 
by taking a journey back in memory " to the doorless and 
hearthless log house by the Roaring Brook " which meanders 
through the village,^ Mrs. Roe, with the ready pen of an author 
and a marvellous recollection of the stirring historic events in 
her father's life, furnished the present writer with particulars 
concerning Matthew Lyon which the world would never have 
known of but for that estimable old lady." 

Mr. Joel C. Baker, of Rutland, one of the speakers at the 
Wallingford centennial celebration which took place in 1873, 

«V. H. M., Vol. Ill, p. U7A- 

*Two books written by Mrs. Roe are in the author's possession. 
" Aunt Leanna or Early Scenes in Kentucky," Chicago, published for 
the author, 1855, and " Recollections of Frontier Life," Rockford, 
Illinois, Gazette Publishing House, 1885. 



100 MATTHEW LYON 

selected for his theme the Hfe and pubhc services of Matthew 
Lyon, " who," as we are told by Rev. H. H. Saunderson, 
" for a time had been a citizen of Wallingford."" 

Like the titles of most of his neighbors, Lyon's title to his 
homestead in the town was acquired under a charter issued in 
1 761 by the royal governor of New Hampshire, Benning Went- 
worth. Many New York officials, including several pre-revo- 
lutionary governors, had become personally interested in Ver- 
mont lands and granted them not only to civilians but to 
soldiers of the old French war, a brisk business having been 
carried on in lands on the west side of the Green Mountains, 
especially in these military grants. The patentees were mostly 
foreigners who went back to Europe after the treaty of Paris, 
and for trifling sums assigned their patents before departure to 
the officials who issued them. The latter were determined to 
profit by the speculation. In this way the seeds were sown of 
the celebrated Hampshire Grants controversy. 

Governor Colden's greed and Ethan Allen's pugnacity were 
aroused, farmers and land-jobbers were in conflict, and Puritan 
and Patroon were "miching mallecho," and reviving a vendetta 
almost as fierce as that between ancient Iroquois and Algon- 
quin along the shores of Lake Champlain. 

It has been asserted by several writers that Vermont had the 
roughest experience of all the struggling Colonies. It would 
be nearer the truth to say that Vermont was the most for- 
tunate one of them all. A combination of peculiar circum- 
stances produced this result, (i) It was fortunate in its gallant 
and hardy defenders, although Yorkers called Ethan Allen 
another Robm Hood, and offered a reward for his head; (2) 



oV. H. M., Vol. Ill, p. 1 183. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 101 

fortunate in its perilous situation midway between Canada and 
the United States, for out of the " nettle danger to pluck this 
flower safety " was rendered comparatively easy by the rivalry 
of the two great powers; (3) fortunate even in the number of 
its foes, as Massachusetts, New Hampshire," New York and 
British America each sought in opposition to the others to 
capture the prize for itself; (4) fortunate in freedom from the 
burden of debt and taxation under which for the twelve years 
of the Confederation the thirteen States suffered and groaned; 
(5) finally, with the wrath of the United States provoked by 
the Haldimand Intrigue, which many to this day style incip- 
ient treason, and with American peace and independence 
established, and New York, Massachusetts and New Hamp- 
shire left free to deal with the Green Mountain Boys and dis- 
member and divide up their portion among themselves, even 
then the supreme good fortune of Vermont placed the defiant 
little rebel against both England and the United States upon a 
more solid and enduring foundation than ever before. 

The balance of power in the American Union was already in 
1 791 looming up between North and South, a gaunt spectre, 
which finally, seventy years later, in 1861, overshadowed and 
involved the land in frightful war and slaughter. Alexander 
Hamilton perceived the necessity of a check to southern pre- 
ponderance likely to follow the admission of Kentucky into the 
Union, and thus New York, an ancient enemy, furnished the 
master spirit to champion the cause of Vermont, and secure its 
admission likewise as a free and independent State. 

Was she not fortune's favorite child, this mountain com- 
monwealth, when all influences, whether internal and friendly, 

*New Hampshir'e Petition, Doct. Hist. N. Y., Vol. IV, pp. 412-13. 



I02 MATTHEW LYON 

or external and unfriendly, conspired as though by manifest 
destiny to propel her forward into the charmed circle of the 
Confederacy ?" 

It is singular that no one should have yet written a full and 
satisfactory account of the Hampshire Grants controversy.^ 
The dispute extended over a period of forty years. To Ben- 
ning Wentworth the grants were a rich source of revenue. 
After he had made a fortune out of them, he turned over the 
dispute to the grantees, and Yorkers and Green Mountain 
Boys soon came to blows and were long in armed antagonism. 
Governor Tryon issued doughty proclamations fixing a price 
on Allen's head, and Allen retorted with counter proclamations 
of outlawry against his New York enemies. Now some myr- 
midon of the Albany officials seizes and brings in an unwary 

"In his address at the dedication of the monument to Nathaniel 
Chipman at Tinmouth, Vermont, October 3, 1873, Hon. E. P. Walton, 
of Montpelier, said: " Chipman was anxious for the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution and the admission of Vermont to the Union, but 
he believed that this would strip multitudes of Vermonters of their 
possessions, as the ultimate decision of their land-titles would fall to 
the United States courts. At the same time Hamilton feared that the 
requisite number of States might not be secured for the adoption of 
the Federal Constitution, and he therefore desired the vote of Ver- 
mont. Still further, he looked to the selection of New York city as 
the capital of the Union, and hoped to strengthen the chances for 
success by the aid of Vermont. It was obvious to both that Chitten- 
den and his friends, who ruled Vermont " (one of the foremost of 
these friends of Governor Chittenden was his son-in-law Matthew 
Lyon), " would never join the Federal Union if it was to be at the 
sacrifice of a large portion of the people. The only possible solution 
of the difficulties which baffled Chipman and Hamilton was to remove 
the claim of the New York grantees to lands in Vermont by buying 
them out. And thus the controversy was settled, at a cheap price. 
$30,000, to Vermont, and a large loss to the New York grantees." Ver- 
mont Historical Magazine, Vol. Ill, p. 1158. 

6 Prof. J. D. Butler's 1846 Address before the Vt. Hist. Soc. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS IO3 

Green Mountain Boy; straightway Allen retaliates by seizing 
the first Yorker and subjecting him to " a castigation with the 
twigs of the wilderness." Appeals were made to the mother 
country to settle the dispute, but owing to the greed of land 
speculators on both sides, and the vacillating and selfish poHcy 
of the English Board of Trade, predatory border war continued 
for years, and the dispute promised to be as interminable as the 
similar Schleswig-Holstein dispute in more recent European 
history. Then came the American revolution to swallow up 
everything else in colonial life except the Hampshire Grants 
controversy which, although postponed in presence of the 
grander struggle, still survived in undiminished vigor. The 
Confederation was formed and after twelve years gave place to 
the present happy Constitution, and still the fight went on in 
the Hampshire Grants. The Federal Government was two 
years of age, and that sphinx of the Green Mountains re- 
mained as defiant and vexatious as ever. When it came to an 
end at last, as sooner or later even a sphinx must do, it took 
its quietus by compromise and dropped from view unsolved. 

The history of this remarkable conflict well deserves a his- 
torian. The national historians, Bancroft and Hildreth, pass 
it over with a few hurried sentences. James Duane, one of the 
early Mayors of New York city, in his pamphlet entitled " A 
State of the Right of the Colony of New York with respect to 
its Eastern Boundary; " Henry B. Dawson, in his " Historical 
Magazine," and a few other New York writers have con- 
tributed interesting but partisan views upon the subject. On 
the other side Ethan Allen in his " Brief Narrative," Ira Allen 
and Dr. Williams in their histories of Vermont, and Hiland 
Hall in his " Early History " of the same State, and some 



I04 MATTHEW LYON 

Others, have entered the lists against the New York writers, and 
presented to the world ingenious pleas for Vermont. But 
these controversial books and essays cannot be accepted as 
impartial by the serious student of American history. Perhaps 
the nearest approach on this subject, to what is yet a desidera- 
tum in the historical literature of the country, is to be found in 
the " Life of Ethan Allen " by Jared Sparks. The materials 
were rather scant, and rt>any important facts since brought to 
light were not yet accessible when Mr. Sparks wrote. It must 
be added that he shows a considerable bias in favor of the 
Green Mountain Boys, but perhaps on the whole his book con- 
tains the most satisfactory discussion of the origin and history 
of the Hampshire Grants controversy which has been pub- 
lished. 

A memoir of Matthew Lyon, although he was one of the 
leaders in the struggle, affords neither proper space nor oppor- 
tunity for an investigation of this interesting chapter of Ameri- 
can histO'ry. A hint or two on the subject must here suffice, 
and indeed is necessary to elucidate some events in Colonel 
Lyon's career at this period. 

Which of the contCQding parties was right,, and which wrong 
in the doughty provincial war? Or was the right or wrong of 
the matter clearly with neither side? Let impartial students, 
to whom the question really belongs, examine and decide. In 
a nutshell the whole inquiry hinges on the proper answer to a 
single question: 

Were the boundaries claimed by Massachusetts under the 
Devon Charter actually granted to that Colony by James the 
First; or were the boundafies of New Netherland claimed by 
New York actually granted by the Charter of Charles the 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS IO5 

Second to his brother the Duke of York? That is the crucial 
question of the whole controversy. 

While New Hampshire and the Green Mountain Boys were 
involved in dispute with New York, the contention of Benning 
Wentworth was that New Hampshire had an extension of the 
same western limits as Connecticut and Massachusetts. He 
made the mistake of treating the Connecticut line as though 
prescribed by a British charter. Such, however, was not the 
fact. That line was the result of an agreement entered into 
with New York in 1684, and hence the question is narrowed, 
as here stated, to Massachusetts and New York. 

The Charter of Charles the Second to the Duke of York, 
March 12, 1664, comprehended the same eastern boundary, 
namely, the west bank of the Connecticut river, as was con- 
firmed to New York by the decree of George the Third in 
1764, just one century later. That grant was never annulled, 
and the territory now known as the State of Vermont was em- 
braced within the chartered limits of New York. But equit- 
able rights are sometimes merged in adverse possession. The 
greed of Albany officials alienated the sympathies of the British 
ministry, and the utterances not only of the Board of Trade 
but of the King himself, began to betray sympathy with the 
Green Mountain Boys. On the other hand, Benning Went- 
worth, Governor of New Hampshire, had an itching palm 
quite equal to that of Governor Golden, of New York, and 
between the years 1749 and 1764 the former had issued patents 
for 130 townships in the Hampshire Grants. 

Besides the fees received from patentees, Wentworth was in 
the habit of setting apart for himself 500-acre reservations in 
most of these several townships. Speculators on both sides 



Io6 MATTHEW LYON 

thus involved the merits of the controversy in the greatest per- 
plexity. The English Board of Trade advised the King and 
ministry to refuse compliance with New York's requisition for 
a military force to quell the " Bennington Mob." Generals 
Haldimand and Gage when called upon by the Governor of 
New York to furnish troops against the Green Mountain Boys 
declined to obey the requisition. Thus encouraged by the 
mother country, Ethan Allen and his followers not only drove 
New York grantees from the disputed territory, but repulsed 
sheriffs, surveyors and other officials as often as they appeared 
within the limits of the Grants. 

A change of policy, remarkable as it was sudden, later on 
occurred in the British ministry. Lord Dartmouth expressed 
diplomatic alann at the concurrence of lawless banditti from all 
parts of America on the Hampshire Grants, adding insincere 
sympathy for New York in the teeth of his former declarations 
upon the subject. This weak reversal of ministerial policy was 
due entirely to a cause independent of the rights of either party. 
The American revolution was beginning to shake the sea-girt 
isle from end to end, and it was discovered that Ethan Allen 
was an ardent Whig, while Governor Golden was an equally 
ardent Loyalist. Change of front came too late to benefit New 
York; the mischief had been done by a vacillating policy of 
makeshifts and procrastination on the part of the English 
Board of Trade, the notorious inefficiency of which, not only 
in this dispute, but in its transactions with the whole thirteen 
Colonies, proved not the least potent auxiliary to American 
independence. 

Massachusetts denied vigorously that the eastern boundary 
of New York was the west side of Connecticut river; on the 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS IO7 

contrary it maintained that its own western boundary extended 
to a line within twenty miles of the Hudson river by virtue of 
the patent granted at Plymouth in the county of Devon, known 
as the Council of Devon, by James the First in the eighteenth 
year of his reign. It was further claimed by Massachusetts 
that the Council of Devon, in the third year of Charles the First, 
included the lands in dispute in a grant to Sir Henry Roswell, 
Sir John Young, Knight, Thomas Southcott^ and others, their 
assigns forever; that the said disputed territory was confirmed 
to Massachusetts by Charles the First in the fourth year of his 
reign, and by virtue of that grant, although it was vacated in 
Chancery in 1684, Massachusetts was seized of said lands at the 
time of the grant to the Duke of York who could not infringe 
on its patent; and finally that the territory in dispute was 
granted. well and validly to Massachusetts by the charter of 
1693. 

The pretensions of New Hampshire to the disputed territory, 
granted so lavishly by Governor Wentworth, were based wholly 
upon a northward extension of the Massachusetts line. If the 
claim set up by the latter Colony to a western boundary, twenty 
miles distant from the Hudson river, was a valid one, the juris- 
diction of New Hampshire over the grants in question was not 
to be assailed by New York, but so far as that Colony was 
concerned the grants of Wentworth conveyed absolutely an 
unclouded fee-simple title to the purchasers and their assigns 
forever. 

The boundaries of the government of New Hampshire, the 
only royal plantation in New England, were defined in letters 
patent of George the Second given at Whitehall the third day 
of July, 1 741, in the following words: 



I08 MATTHEW LYON 

" Our province of New Hampshire within our dominions of 
New England in America, bounded on the south side by a 
similar curve line, pursuing the course of Merrimac river at 
three miles distance on the north side thereof; beginning at the 
Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point due north of a place 
called Pontucket Falls; and by a straight line drawn from 
thence due west across the said river till it meets with our other 
governments ; and bounded on the south side by a line passing 
up through the mouth of Piscataqua Harbour, and up the mid- 
dle of the river to the river of Newichwaunock, part of which 
is now called Salmon Falls, and through the middle of the 
same to the furthest head thereof; and from thence north two 
degrees westerly, until one hundred and twenty miles be 
finished from the mouth of Piscataqua Harbour aforesaid, or 
until it meets with our other governments." 

These boundary lines of New Hampshire were thus limited 
by George the Second in their extension westward and north- 
ward by his majesty's other governments, and all grants of 
lands westward of the Connecticut river issued by Benning 
Wentworth were subject to those limitations. 

The extension of the western limits of Connecticut afforded 
the Governor of New Hampshire no precedent, since Connecti- 
cut came into possession of a western limit twenty miles east of 
the Hudson river, not by charter from the Crown, but by cove- 
nant and agreement with New York in 1684, afterwards con- 
vfirmed by King William. Under that agreement New York 
and Connecticut commissioners ran the lines and marked the 
bounds and monuments between the two Colonies in 1725, 
thereby fixing the eastern boundary of New York at a point 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS lOQ 

twenty miles east of the Hudson river as far north as the 
Colony of Connecticut extended. 

With this brief outline of the jurisdictional claims of Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire^ it only remains to 
inquire what were the limits of New York in the same direc- 
tion, before passing from this the most vexed territorial con- 
troversy in our Colonial history. 

The boundaries of New York are given in a " Description of 
New Netherland " pubHshed at Amsterdam in 1671, which the 
indefatigable Dutch historian. Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, con- 
sidered to have been borrowed from Van der Donck's famous 
account, entitled " Beschryving van Nieuw Nederlandt," which 
was published in Holland in 1656. The following are the 
limits assigned in this account to the Dutch province: " New 
Netherland bounded on the southwest by Virginia, stretches 
on the . northeast to New England ; on the north it is 
washed by the river Canada, and on the coast by the ocean; 
northwesterly, inland, it remains wholly unknown. The first 
who discovered this country was Henry Hudson. Engaged 
by the East India Company to find out a passage to China 
north of America, he set sail with the yacht " Half Moon " in 
the year 1609. In front of Newfoundland he took a course 
directly southwest, entered a large river, there met two men 
clothed in elk skins, and subsequently arrived safe at Amster- 
dam. New Netherland being thus discovered, divers traders 
set about establishing a stable trade here. Wherefore they 
sought for and obtained a charter in the year 1614, from the 
States General at The Hague, to trade to New Netherland to 
the exclusion of all others."" 



a Doct. Hist. N. Y., Vol. IV., pp. 75 and 84. 



no MATTHEW LYON 

Henddck Hudson sold the province to the Dutch soon after 
he discovered it, and the Dutch West India Company settled 
a Colony there and called it New Netherland, long before the 
Massachusetts and Connecticut charters were granted. In 
1660 the English captured the Colony from the Dutch, who 
recaptured it in 1673, but surrendered it in the following year 
by the treaty of Breda to the English government. Charles 
the Second thereupon granted a Charter again to the Duke of 
York of the lands recovered from the Dutch. The limits of 
the Duke's grant appear to have been identical with those of 
New Netherland, as a reference to the charter shows: By his 
several letters patent of the 12th of March, 1663-4, and the 29th 
of June, 1674, Charles the Second " did give and grant in fee 
unto his brother James, Duke of York, certain lands of which 
the province of New York is a part; containing among other 
tracts ' all that island or islands, commonly called by the sev- 
eral name or names of Matowacks or Long Island, situate and 
being toward the west of Cape Cod and the Narrow Higgan- 
setts, abutting upon the mainland between the two rivers there 
called or known by the several names of Connecticut and 
Hudson's rivers; together also with the said river called Hud- 
son's river, and all the land from the west side of Connecticut 
river to the east side of Delaware Bay.' "** 

It will thus be seen that the province of New York extended 
east as far as the Connecticut river. The historical student, 
bearing in mind the respective boundary lines here sketched of 
the three New England provinces and of New York, will have 
no difficulty in forming a safe judgment upon the priority of 
jurisdiction over the territory embraced within Vermont. 

a Ibid, p. 346. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS III 

After patient research and impartial investigation among' the 
earliest muniments of title to the territory under consideration, 
it is the opinion of the present writer that the grants made by 
Governor Benning Wentworth of lands westward of Con- 
necticut river, known as the Hampshire Grants, were in un- 
mistakable violation of the territorial rights of New York. 

The situation of the settlers on the Grants was rendered 
embarrassing by the royal decree of 1764, which fixed Con- 
necticut river as the dividing line between New York and New 
Hampshire. But they were loyally prepared to acknowledge 
New York's jurisdiction over their territory, however repug- 
nant to their wishes and feelings the change might be. Had 
the New York officials of that day shown sound policy and not 
strained the King's decision in their favor beyond its obvious 
meaning and purpose, that decree would have been the happy 
issue of- the long dispute, and the Hampshire Grants would 
have been annexed to New York, and to-day would form a part 
of the great Empire State. But land speculators in the cities 
of Albany and New York went farther and m.aintained that the 
decree of George the Third not only fixed the jurisdiction, but 
rendered null and void the Wentworth Grants. In other 
words, these land-jobbers insisted that the King's act, instead 
of being a peaceful settlement of the boundary lines between 
two of his Colonies, was a sweeping act of universal confiscation 
denounced against the inhabitants on the Hampshire Grants. 
Formal demands were made for a surrender of the lands, and 
unsuccessful attempts on the part of New York patentees to 
oust the Green Mountain Boys were of common occurrence. 
Ejectment suits followed, and, as they were tried at Albany, 
decisions were always in favor of the Yorkers, Ethan Allen, 



112 MATTHEW LYON 

who attended at the trial of the first of these actions with the 
well-known Connecticut lawyer, Jared IngersoU, attorney for 
the defendant, left the court in despair of obtaining justice be- 
fore such a tribunal. " Might often prevails against right," 
said the facetious attorney-general who appeared for the 
Yorkers. " The gods of the valleys are not the gods of the 
hills," retorted Allen. Affecting not to understand these 
words, the attorney-general questioned him further: " If you 
will accompany me to the hill of Bennington," repHed the ready 
Green Mountain Boy, " the sense will be made clear."*^ 

Submission to a change of jurisdiction, when decreed by the 
King, was the duty of loyal subjects. But the Green Moun- 
tain Boys were not to be forisfamiliated in a strange tribunal 
composed exclusively of their enemies. Albany judgments 
were defied, and organized resistance to what the inhabitants 
on the grants called a scheme of plunder met the sheriffs who 
came to execute the writs. The Green Mountain Boys would 
neither submit to confiscation, nor consent to buy over again 
what they had already bought and paid for to a royal governor 
whose authority was derived from the same King in whose 
name it was now proposed to despoil them. 

That the decree of 1764 had been misconstrued by New York 
was made evident by a subsequent order of the King in Council 
(July 24, 1767) commanding the Governor of New York to 
abstain from issuing any more patents in the disputed territory 
until the royal intentions should further be made known, 
" upon pain of his Majesty's highest displeasure."^ 

"Ira Allen's " History of Vermont," p. 25. Also Sparks's and 
De Puy's "Life of Ethan Allen." 

"Doct. Hist. N. Y., Vol. IV, pp. 375-6. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS II3 

And now " the Bennington Mob," as the Yorkers oppro- 
briously called all Green Mountain Boys, under the spirited 
leadership of Ethan Allen, proved more than a match for the 
Albany officials in the border war which continued to rage for 
several succeeding years. At length the Revolution burst forth, 
and after the fight at Lexington there were found in the ranks 
of Americans no longer Yorkers or Green Mountain Boys; 
only Tories and Sons of Liberty remained. Ethan Allen, 
trained to war from his boyhood, stepped forth a valiant Whig, 
fell like a thunderbolt on Ticonderoga, electrified the continent 
by its capture, and crowned the exploit with the best epigram- 
matic speech on record. " By what authority?" inquired the 
astonished English commandant of the fortress in reply to the 
demand for surrender. "In the name of the Great Jehovah and 
the Continental Congress," was the responsive and resounding 
anti-climax of Allen. 

The capture of Ticonderoga was the first offensive blow by 
the Americans in the Revolutionary war, and the tidings of their 
victory carried dismay to the ministry of Lord North. Among 
the gallant band of patriots who achieved this brilliant and 
substantial triumph at Ticonderoga was Matthew Lyon, neph- 
ew by his first marriage of Ethan Allen. In a letter written 
at Frankfort, Kentucky, January 16, 1817, to Senator Armisted 
C. Mason, of Virginia, whose tragic end in a duel so aroused 
indignation in 1819, Lyon gave a quaint and forcible resume 
of his career. The following extract from that letter will be 
read with interest by all Vermonters, and especially by the 
people of Wallingford, where Lyon resided at the period of 
which he writes: " In 1774, when British encroachment on 
our rights was raising the spirit of resistance, I laid before the 



114 MATTHEW LYON 

youngerly men in my neighborhood, in the country now called 
Vermont, a plan for an armed association which was adopted. 
We armed and clothed ourselves uniformly. We hired an old 
veteran to teach us discipline, and we each of us took the com- 
mand in turn, so that every one should know the duty of every 
station. With a part of this company of Minute Men, im- 
mediately after the Lexington battle, I joined Ethan Allen. 
Eighty-five of us took from one hundred and forty British 
veterans the fort Ticonderoga, which contained the artillery 
and warlike stores which drove the British from Boston and 
aided in taking Burgoyne and Cornwallis. Tliat fort contained 
when we took it more cannon, mortar-pieces and other military 
stores than could be found in all the revolted Colonies. At 
the rate captors have /been paid in the late (1812) war, our 
plunder, which we gave to the nation without even pay for our 
time, was worth more than a million of dollars. I persuaded 

many of the Royal Irish Company taken there to join 

us, who afterwards distinguished themselves in our cause. In 
the same month, April, 1775, for the purpose of taking an 
armed sloop in the lake, it was necessary to mount two heavy 
pieces of ordnance at Crown Point. Our European artillerists 
said it could not be done without certain apparatus which could 
not be obtained without a ruinous delay. With the assistance 
of a few backwoodsmen and some timber, readily procured, I 
mounted them, and put the match to the first cannon ever fired 
under the auspices of the American Eagle, whose renown has 
spread far and wide." 

Lyon took just pride in the famous capture of Ticonderoga. 
" Now is the time," he said afterwards on the floor of Con- 
gress, during a debate on the repeal of the Embargo, February 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 115 

7, 1809, " to pause and count the cost. I know a little of what 
war means. Although I had not the honor of bearing a con- 
spicuous part in that war which gave this country liberty, 
although I had the mortification very unjustly to receive a 
stab in my reputation in that war, a stab which would have put 
almost any other man down, I acted an humble though perhaps 
a useful part in that war from the first to the last of it. I was 
a private soldier in one of those companies called ' Minute 
Men ' who first took up arms in defense of the cause of Ameri- 
can liberty, and with my gun on my shoulder marched to take 
Ticonderoga under the command of Ethan Allen."* - 

Nothing could have been more opportune for the interests 
of Vermont in the Continental Congress than the capture of 
this great stronghold of the British. The powerful influence of 
George Clinton, the patriotic Governor of New York, and the 
occasional intrigues of Massachusetts and New Hampshire to 
annex the Grants, were felt injuriously by the Green Mountain 
Boys. Congress was at times supine, and at other times half 
ready to recognize New York's jurisdictional claims to the 
disputed territory. But when Ethan Allen seized the Keys of 
Champlain and handed them over as a trophy to the patriot 
cause, pigmy colonial struggles and marauding exploits of the 
J past were forgotten, the bickerings of petty land-jobbers were 
« silenced, and with rigor relenting the Continental Congress 
" pardoned something to the spirit of liberty." 

To such heroes Congress voted the same pay as that received 
by officers and men on the Continental establishment, and 
recommended to the Provincial Congress of New York that, 
after consulting with General Schuyler, " they should employ 

o Annals of Congress, Tenth Congress, Second Session, p. 1416. 



IljS MATTHEW LYON 

in the army to be raised for the defense of America those called 
Green Mountain Boys under such ofhcers as the said Green 
Mountain Boys should choose."** 

Magnanimously forgetting the past, the Provincial Congress 
of New York adopted a resolution which authorized the Green 
Mountain Boys to raise a regiment of five hundred men, and 
to select their own officers up to the grade of lieutenant-colonel 
inclusive, the field officers to be appointed by New York. An 
invidious recommendation was added, undoubtedly aimed at 
Ethan Allen, on whose head they had once set a price, that the 
Green Mountain Boys would nominate acceptable persons to 
New York. Whether this ill-tempered request, or an actual 
preference of Vermonters for another leader, determined the 
choice, certain it is that Ethan Allen was dropped, and the 
Dorset convention of July 26, 1775, by a vote of forty-five to 
five, selected Seth Warner lieutenant-colonel of the new com- 
mand. Matthew Lyon was chosen adjutant to the regiment.** 
Daniel Chipman, in his " Life of Seth Warner," while suit- 
ably recounting Allen's merits, seems to regard the claims of 
Warner as superior. The former, he says, " was sonietimes 
rash and imprudent," the latter " was modest and unassum- 

ing."" 

The unfortunate capture of Ethan Allen in his sortie on 
Montreal perhaps gave rise to the opinion that he was rash and 
imprudent. But Major Brown, who conceived the idea of cap- 



a " Life of Ethan Allen," by Jared Sparks, p. 289. 

& Lyon's Congressional Narrative, Annals of Congress, February i, 
1798. He also said in the letter to Senator Mason, an extract from 
which is quoted on a preceding page: "The first summer I was ap- 
pointed one of the first Revolutionary adjutants." 

* Daniel Chipman's " Memoir of Col. Seth Warner," pp. 34-5. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS II7 

luring the town, and persuaded Allen to aid in the assault, is 
responsible by inexcusable absence from his appointed post for 
the fiasco that followed. " Carleton afterwards admitted," 
says a more recent writer, but who cites no authority for so 
important an admission by the British commander, "that if 
Brown had not failed to join Allen, Montreal would have fallen 
into their hands.'"* 

Colonel Warner's regiment, of which Lyon was adjutant, 
served with distinction under General Montgomery in Canada 
during the brilliant fall campaign of 1775. Mr. Chipman has 
fallen into an error where he says at page 36 of his " Life of 
Warner," " it is evident that both Warner and the officers of his 
regiment were without commissions, for we find by Mont- 
gomery's orderly book that, on the i6th of September, he 
issued an order appointing Seth Warner colonel of a regiment 
of Green Mountain Rangers, requiring that he should be 
obeyed as such. Probably the Provincial Congress of New 
York withheld the commissions on the same grounds on which 
in the following year they urged the Continental Congress to 
recall the commissions which they had given to Warner and 
the officers of his regiment." As Mr. Chipman tells us at page 
2 that he had but " scanty materials," and had to trust to his 
" own recollection " when he wrote, he no doubt did injustice 
to New York unintentionally. Warner was not without his 
commission at the time referred to by Chipman. The careful 
Dr. O'Callaghan in the " Documentary History of New York," 
compiled from original sources in the State archives at Albany, 
informs us at page 554 of the fourth volume of that valuable 

"" Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Heroes," by H. W. 
De Puy, p. 3021 



Il8 MATTHEW LYON 

work, in a note to a letter of Ethan Allen, that " Seth Warner 
was appointed Lt. Col. of the Green Mountain Boys on the 
1st Sept., 1775, by the N. Y. Prov. Congress." New York, 
therefore, did not withhold the commission of Warner. The 
orderly book of General Montgomery may show that Seth 
Warner was appointed colonel of Green Mountain Rangers on 
the 1 6th of September without impugning the verity of the 
record of his appointment as lieutenant-colonel of the Green 
Mountain Boys on the ist of the same month. It would rather 
appear that the gallant Montgomery " seventh from Washing- 
ton in rank, next to him in merit,"*^ had witnessed Warner in 
action, and promoted him to a full colonelcy for good conduct, 
as he was not the man to deny to valor its reward. 

About the end of November the term for which they had 
enlisted having expired, and their equipment not being suffi- 
cient for the rigors of a Canadian winter, Colonel Warner and 
his men returned home, bearing back with them the thanks 
and comimendation of General Montgomery. Having con- 
quered two-thirds of Canada and raised the hopes of the 
patriots by his genius in arms, the hapless Montgomery, with 
victory almost at hand, fell on those same Heights of Quebec 
where Montcalm and Wolfe had yielded up their spirits before^ 
and then and there the prospect of wresting Canada from the 
mother country was dimmed and extinguished. 

The American army was reduced to the utmost straits. 
Smallpox carried oflf hundreds of officers and men. Large 
reinforcements reached the enemy, and General Carleton had 
hopes of capturing the remnant of the American forces. Gen- 

« Bancroft's " History of the United States," Vol. VII, Centenary 
edition. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS II9 

eral Wooster wrote to Colonel Warner, January 6, 1776, an 
earnest appeal for succor in his distress, and the Green Moun- 
tain Boys, under their gallant leader, again took up the march 
across the border into Canada, Their services were invaluable. 
They formed part of the rear guard during the retreat, minis- 
tered to the sick, and repulsed scouting parties of the enemy, 
until at length the almost exhausted Americans passed the 
border with the British in hot pursuit. Winter proclaimed an 
armistice, and General Gates, who succeeded General Sullivan, 
presently drew in his troops about Ticonderoga, and the dis- 
astrous Canadian campaign was at an end. 

Seth Warner, now out of commission, shortly after appUed 
to the commander of the Northern Department for troops to 
protect the frontier left defenceless by the retreat of the army. 
General Gates recommended in reply that six companies should 
be raised by the Committee of the Hampshire Grants, promis- 
ing to commission the officers at Continental pay as soon as 
they should be nominated. Matthew Lyon was a member of 
this Committee which immediately selected the officers for the 
companies. Lyon was nominated by the Committee and re- 
ceived his commission from Gates as a second lieutenant. He 
was at this time at home in Wallingford where he forthwith 
began to enlist men, and shortly raised his quota. At his own 
expense he set out with his recruits for Pittsford, which was 
the rendezvous for the companies as fast as they should be 
raised. On his arrival there Lyon met his captain and first 
lieutenant, neither of whom had raised any men. He was as- 
tonished to find that only two companies and part of a third, 
besides his own men, had been raised by the several officers 



I20 MATTHEW LYON 

nominated by the committee of the Hampshire Grants. The 
cause of this unexpected apathy soon became apparent. 

A resolution passed Congress July 5, 1776, with the echoes 
of the Declaration of Independence still lingering in the cham- 
ber from the previous day, to raise a new regiment of the Con- 
tinental line to serve during the war, and to be composed of 
Green Mountain Boys under command of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Warner. This was the first formal recognition of the Green 
Mountain Boys by the United States, and created much en- 
thusiasm throughout the Grants. Its effect was to paralyze 
the work of enlistment in the six home companies, and to 
stimulate the business of forming Warner's Continental regi- 
ment, which was rapidly recruited to the maximum number. 
Matthew Lyon immediately applied to General Gates to dis- 
charge him and his men in order that he might enroll himself 
with them in the regular service of the United States under 
Warner. To this application Gates promptly returned a favor- 
able reply, and ordered Lyon to prepare his payroll for settle- 
ment with his men for the time they had already served before 
enrollment in the new regiment. A gang of wheat speculators 
of Tory proclivities, had bought for a mere trifle the growing 
crops from the farmers along the Canadian border, who, when 
the army fell back and left them within the enemy's lines, had 
fled southward with their families, a body of homeless refugees. 
If troops were ordered north, as the wheat gang expected, 
their speculation would become profitable, for the crops would 
be required for subsistence, and army quartermasters would be 
ready to buy them. With this view these speculators now 
urged General Gates not to disband the home companies, but 
to order them to the north as a protection to helpless families 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 121 

who, they falsely pretended to believe, had been left behind, and 
to act as videttes upon the enemy's movements. They urged 
this request with so much plausibility that General Gates 
yielded to their rascally petition, countermanded his order for 
the disbandment of the militia companies, and sent them far 
north, to a place called Jericho, precisely where the speculators 
owned the crops. " General Gates," said Lyon in the Mason 
letter, " influenced by designing Tories, ordered the party 
seventy miles in advance of our army." 

This apparently trivial transaction was big with the fate of 
Matthew Lyon. A stroke of misfortune now overtook him so 
severe, so unprovoked by act or word of his, and which entailed 
on an innocent, upright man so much oibloquy and undeserved 
reproach in after years, culminating at last with a battle royal on 
the floor of Congress, that it would be inexcusable to omit from 
this memoir a recital of the events which presently took place. 
Fortunately Matthew Lyon himself has put on record a narra- 
tive of these events on a solemn and formal public occasion, 
the truth of which was confirmed by many contemporaneous 
witnesses and writers in Vermont, while no witness or writer 
on the subject ever denied its truth in a single particular. This 
account was related before the Committee of Privileges of the 
House of Representatives by Matthew Lyon, February i, 1798. 
That part of the narrative which refers to the Jericho afifair is 
subjoined: " In 1776, after the retreat from Canada, Colonel 
Seth Warner, being out of employ, applied to the commander- 
in-chief in the northern department for some defense for the 
frontier of New Hampshire Grants, which became exposed by 
the retreat of the army. The general recommended to the 
Committee of the New Hampshire Grants, of which I was a 



122 MATTHEW LYON 

member, to nominate the commissioned officers for six com- 
panies, and he promised to commission them, and that they 
should be entitled to Continental pay. In one of these com- 
panies I received a commission as a second lieutenant. I set 
about enlisting my men, and immediately obtained my quota, 
and at my own expense marched them to the rendezvous at 
Pittsford about twenty miles southeast from Ticonderoga, 
which by this time had become headquarters. At the rendez- 
vous I found the captain and first lieutenant of my company 
had raised no men, and that there were but two companies and 
a part of another, besides mine, raised, and that Colonel War- 
ner, who was expected to have commanded our six companies, 
had received a commission and orders from Congress for rais- 
ing a regiment on the Continental establishment during the 
war, and that in his endeavors to raise his regiment the raising 
of our companies was wholly impeded. Finding the business 
falling into supineness, I applied to the general to discharge me 
and my men, in order that I might join Warner's regiment. 
The general at once agreed to discharge and pay me and my 
men, and ordered m.e to make up my payroll for the purpose. 
But at this juncture application was made to the general by 
some people vvho had bought the crops of the Whigs, and who 
had removed from Onion river; and he was induced to order 
our party to march to Jericho, and take post at a certain house 
on the north side of Onion river, at least sixty miles in advance 
of the army towards Canada — from whence the army had re- 
treated, and about the same distance from any body of inhabi- 
tants; and the general, instead of discharging, ordered me to 
join one of the other companies. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I23 

" The idea of the people, and of the committee of the New 
Hampshire Grants was that these six companies, if they had 
all been raised, would have been stationed somewhere near 
Middlebury, which is opposite Crown Point, and about twelve 
miles east therefrom, and near forty miles southward of the 
place appointed by the general." 

" The commanding officer wrote to the general, representing 
the situation of the country, and the impossibility of our being 
of any service at Onion river, as all the well aflfected people 
were moved away. This letter was either neglected or an- 
svv^ered with a fresh order for marching. The order was 
obeyed; but the soldiers considered themselves sacrificed to the 
interest of those persons who bought the crops for a trifle, 
and wanted to get our party there to eat them at the public 
expense. I opposed those murmurs with all the arguments 
in my power. 

" I used frequently to urge with them that the absolute gov- 
ernment of the army must be with the general ; he could not 
be omniscient, and we ought to submit with cheerfulness and 
hope for the best. In this situation our little garrison, which 
contained about sixty men besides invalids, were alarmed by 
the Indians taking some persons from a house about a mile 
distant. Consternation prevailed. I immediately called for 
volunteers, and with about twenty men went to the house 
where the prisoners had been taken — from thence took a cir- 
cuit in the woods round the garrison in order to see if there 
were any party or appearances of the enemy. Finding none, I 



a " Their destination was to be fixed by the Committee of Safety, 
of which I was a member." Lyon's letter to Senator Mason, January 
16, 181 7. 



124 MATTHEW LYON 

returned and obtained leave to take about five and twenty of 
the best men, and pursue the enemy towards the lakes, where 
we supposed they had gone. I had proceeded about two miles, 
when two runners from the commanding officer brought me 
positive orders to return, with intelligence that a subaltern 
officer had returned from a scout to the Lake Champlain, abput 
twelve miles distant, where he saw five or six hundred Indians. 
" On my return I found the soldiers more than ever anxious 
about their situation. They complained bitterly of the orders 
which bound them to the north side of Onion river, more than 
twenty poles wide, at that time not fordable, and but a single 
small canoe to cross with. I endeavored to encourage them 
with assurances that we could withstand any number of In- 
dians in our log house and a hovel or two which stood near; 
and, after a battle, if we should find the enemy too troublesome, 
we might retreat with honor. I urged them to their duty as 
soldiers and patriots. Every preparation was made to repel 
the attack which was expected from the enemy that night. 
Being fatigued and off duty, I had laid down to rest, with my 
fuzee in my arms. About nine o'clock in the evening I heard a 
violent bustle, with a cry of ' Turn out! turn out! ' I turned out 
and inquired where the enemy were discovered, and was an- 
swered, ' Nowhere.' The soldiers were paraded, and I found 
by what was said by the sergeants that they were about to 
march off and cross the river. I expostulated with them long 
and earnestly, pointing out the dishonor which such an action 
would reflect on their country. I urged them to stay the 
event of a battle, and I spoke the truth when I assured them 
that I preferred death in battle to the dishonor of quitting our 
post. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I25 

" All entreaties were ineffectual ; they declared they had been 
abused — there was no chance for their lives there, and they 
marched off for the south side of the river. A sergeant re- 
turned with some soldiers, and called upon the officers to cross 
the river. As they were going to take the canoe to the other 
side, they insisted on our going, and threatened violence if 
we refused. The other officers, which were two captains and 
one lieutenant, seemed willing to go, and I did not think it 
my duty to resist alone. 

" In the morning the soldiers offered to return to subordina- 
tion if the commanding officer would lead them to a small 
block fort at New Haven, about thirty miles to the southward. 
The officers held a consultation; in this I refused to do any- 
thing but go back to the station we were ordered to maintain. 
We were at this place joined by a lieutenant and a few men, 
who had gone to the mill near Crown Point to get wheat 
ground, and I was sent express to headquarters to carry letters 
and inform the general of what had happened ; but some of the 
wheat speculators had arrived before me, and so exasperated 
the general that when I arrived he was enraged to the highest 
pitch ; he swore we should all be hanged, and ordered me under 
arrest. Within a few days the other officers and some of the 
soldiers were brought into headquarters. We had a trial by a 
court-martial, appointed by the exasperated general, who now 
swore we should all be broke. I proved everything with 
respect to myself that is here stated (the persons are yet alive 
by whom I proved it, and are ready to repeat it), notwithstand- 
ing which I was included in the general sentence of cashiering; 
nor did even the lieutenant who was absent at the mill escape 
the awful condemnation. The soldiers were sentenced to cor- 



126 MATTHEW LYON 

poral punishment, but on General Carleton's coming down to 
attack Ticonderoga they were Hberated. 

" The mortification of being cashiered, and that very un- 
deservedly, without any other aggravation, was, I believe, quite 
to the extent of my power to bear; had any indignant ceremony 
/been to be performed, they would not have had my company at 
it, as the implements of death were in my power. 

" The general sent for us to his own house and there, in a 
mild manner, communicated to us the sentence — no one pres- 
ent, I believe, but his aid; and we took our own time and 
manner of quitting Ticonderoga. I have always understood 
he reversed the sentence. 

" Perhaps my spirit would not have been able to have borne 
up under this affliction had not all my acquaintances acquitted 
me of every color of misbehavior; nor did the bitterest enemy 
ever seriously, between he and me, before the present insult, 
call my courage or my conduct in that instance in question. 
Twenty-one years have elapsed since the unfortunate affair, 
during which it has slept in oblivion, until party rage and party 
newspapers tore open the wound in my breast. 

" To pursue the narrative: General St. Clair, who presided 
at the court-martial which condemned me, in the summer suc- 
ceeding that misfortune, recommended me to General Schuy- 
ler, informing him (as I supposed) of my ill-usage, and of my 
subsequent services, and obtained for me a commission of 
paymaster to a Continental regiment commanded by Colonel 
Seth Warner, which commission entitled me to the rank of 
captain. * * * 

" In this regiment I served at the capture of Burgoyne; and 
the succeeding spring, when my family could return to my 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 12/ 

plantation from which Burgoyne's invasion had drove them, 
at the soHcitation of Governor Chittenden and many other 
friends I resigned,"" 

Horatio Gates, who thus cashiered Matthew Lyon for doing 
his duty with a constancy under difficulties which proved that 
he possessed courage of a heroic quality, " was," says Washing- 
yton Irving, " an Englishman by birth, the son of a captain in 
the British army. Horace Walpole, whose Christian name he 
bore, speaks of him in one of his letters as his godson, though 
some have insinuated that he stood in filial relationship of a 
less sanctified character."^ Bancroft made a careful study of 
the character of Gates, and devotes considerable space to his 
intrigue to degrade Washington from command of the armies 
of the Revolution. 

" Gates enjoyed the friendship of John Adams," says Ban- 
croft.^ Again the national historian informs us that " Gates 
purposely neglected to make reports to his superior. "<* "Wash- 
ington thought that the requisitions of Gates should be made 
directly to himself, or that at least he should receive a duplicate 
of them but Gates insisted on dealing directly with Congress, 
as * the common parent of all the American armies.' "* " Shal- 
low, vain and timorous," says Bancroft elsewhere, " and of lit- 
tle administrative ability, he was restless for high promotion 
without possessing any of the qualities requisite in a leader."-' 



o Annals of Congress, Fifth Congress, Vol. I, pp. 1025-1028. 
6 Irving's " Life of Washington," Vol. I, p. 385^ 
c Bancroft's "History of the United States," Vol. V, p. 299, Cen- 
tenary edition. 

^Ibid, Vol. V, p. 354- 

elbid. Vol. V, p. 55?- 

/ Bancroft's " History of the United States," Vol. VI. p. 275. 



128 MATTHEW LYON 

After the victory at Saratoga, Gates came to an open rup- 
ture with Washington, and the Conway cabal, to advance the 
former over the latter, assumed a most menacing front. Hap- 
pily for the fate of America neither John Adams, nor Samuel 
Adams, nor Mifflin, nor Rush, nor Conway, nor Gates, nor 
Charles Lee, nor all of them and their congeners combined, 
were able to disturb the serene Washington, already conse- 
crated in the hearts of Americans. On the 13th of June, 1780, 
without consulting Washington, and in opposition to his well- 
known wish that General Greene should be sent to the south, 
" Congress unanimously appointed Gates to the command of 
the Southern army, and constituted him independent of the 
rommander-in-chief."" He hastened to South Carolina to ex- 
change, as General Charles Lee predicted, his Northern laurels 
for Southern willows. At the battle of Camden, Gates was 
utterly routed by Cornwallis, and leaving his broken forces to 
take care of themselves, he ran away 200 miles from the scene 
of his disgrace. He sped to Charlotte, and thence to Hills- 
borough, the laughing stock of both armies.'' 

Such was Gates. If Matthew Lyon had been a revengeful 
man, here was more than sufficient to satisfy the most morbid 
sense of injury. But the author, in all of Lyon's correspon- 
dence and speeches, has not found one word of harshness or 
vindictiveness against Gates. That arrogant commander, by a 
wanton abuse of power, had cashiered Lyon for not stopping 
the retreat of sixty men, whom he did not command, before an 
army of nearly ten thousand. Gates himself had now become 
a fugitive from his own army, which he had blindly led to' 

« Bancroft's " History of the United States," Vol. VI, p. 275. 
^Ibid, Vol. VI, p. 281. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I29 

defeat, and then left to its fate. Had Matthew Lyon, instead of 
Horatio Gates, commanded at Camden, deserted his force after 
he had brought disaster upon it, and fled a panic-stricken man 
in buckram two hundred miles from the scene of conflict, no one 
would have complained had a court-martial cashiered him, no 
one could have challenged the justice of the sentence. Had 
Gates presided, to push the hypothetical case one step 
further, at the trial of such a recreant, in all probability 
the doom of death would have been pronounced, and pro- 
nounced justly, against the culprit. The man who cashiered 
Lyon at Ticonderoga, for striving to do his duty in the face of 
insuperable difficulty, was reserved in the eternal fitness of 
things to become the hero of the tragic-farce at Camden. 

Lieutenant Lyon left Ticonderoga with a bleeding heart, a 
brave man struggling against crushing adversities. He re- 
turned to Wallingford and those heroic men whose names are 
synonims for courage, Governor Thomas Chittenden, Ira Allen 
and the other leaders of the Green Mountain Boys, did not 
receive him as Gates had done. They were on the ground, 
knew all the facts of the case, were aware that a gang of cor- 
morant speculators had obtained the ear of General Gates, 
that the retreat from Jericho was earnestly opposed by Lyon, 
and they now declared that Lyon had been iniquitously sacri- 
ficed by Gates at the dictation of camp followers and traffickers 
in the miseries of the people. Nor was Lyon's vindication 
confined to words. He was elected a member within a few 
days of the Dorset convention of July 24, 1776, from Walling- 
ford/ and took his place among the leaders of Vermont, as 
the immediate answer of a brave people to the sentence visited 
» Vermont Historical Society Collections, Vol. I, pp. 16-23. 



130 MATTHEW LYON 

upon him by General Gates. The old Council of Safety pro- 
nounced its verdict on the conduct of General Gates by order- 
ing payment of the balance of ration money due to Captain 
Fassett and his two lieutenants, Matthew Lyon and Jonathan 
Wright, for their services at Jericho on Onion river. As Ver- 
mont's vindication of Matthew Lyon and the others from the 
injustice they endured at the hands of Horatio Gates, the judg- 
ment of the Council of Safety is here transcribed from the pro- 
ceedings of the Council: 

" State of Vermont. In Council of Safety, 19th November, 1777. 
" It is the opinion and judgment of this Council, that Deacon Aza- 
riah Rude (Rood) pay Capt. John Fassett and his two lieutenants, 
Matthew Lyon and Jonathan Wright, all the ration money due to them 
while in service at Onion River in the year 1776, amounting to twenty 
dollars, taking Captain Fassett's receipts for the same, being money 
which said Rude drew from the Quartermaster-GeneraL 

" By order of Council 

" Joseph Fay, Secretary. "» 

In the following summer Burgoyne, " with his amphibious 
and semi-barbarous armament,"'' began the famous invasion by 
way of Lake Champlain. The British army in New York, 
under Howe, was to march northward and form a vmion with 
Burgoyne's army at Albany, as it descended from Canada. 
But this junction, which might have proved irresistible, was 
not to take place. With eight thousand men of all arms ad- 
mirably equipped and officered, Burgoyne attacked Ticonde- 
roga. The brave but unfortunate St. Clair, after the enemy 
had planted a battery on Fort or Mount Defiance which over- 
looked and commanded Ticonderoga, evacuated the fortress in 
the face of the overwhelming army of invasion. This step 



o Records of Governor and Council, Vol. I, p. u 
* Irving's " Life of Washington," Vol. II, p. 89. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 13^ 

created widespread popular dissatisfaction. The position was 
supposed to be a defensible if not impregnable one. Wash- 
ington Irving imputes the blame largely to General St. Clair. 
Bancroft takes a hasty but juster view. The military parts of 
Irving's " Life of Washington " are drawn largely in mezzo- 
tint. It is to be regretted, with the many lives of Washington 
issued during the last hundred years, that his inner military 
history is less understood by the general public of this day 
than it was by those who lived nearer to his own time, and 
derived their knowledge from the official reports of the com- 
mander-in-chief and his officers, and the surrounding circum- 
stances of the times. The American Livy has not yet ap- 
peared. 

To understand St. Clair's position at Ticonderoga the 
intrigues of faction which then affiicted the country, as they 
have so often since, must be distinctly kept in view. A bitter 
feud between New York and New England, existing prior to 
the Revolution and actively at work during its progress, had 
much to do with this misfortune. A like spirit manifested 
itself in the camp of Allen and Arnold when Ticonderoga was 
captured from Delaplace. It was at work when Massachu- 
setts at first declined. New York held back, and Connecticut 
finally sent troops under Hinman to occupy the station. Then 
when Montgomery's brilliant stroke of war in the north was 
followed by his death, the Continental Congress weakly inter- 
meddled with Washington and his army, sent. Gate-s to super- 
sede Schuyler in the Northern department, and with like stu- 
pidity, as danger approached, allowed him to seek shelter under 
Washington in the Middle States, and finally when it was too 
late they restored Schuyler to his old command. These 



132 MATTHEW LYON 

changes were the result of sectional jealousies^ and showed im- 
becility of management. Arnold's madness for renown led to 
the destruction of his squadron on Lake Champlain,and Schuy- 
ler's limited means and want of influence with the Eastern troops, 
all left Ticonderoga a doomed post long before it was evacuated 
on the 6th of July, 1777. Schuyler was an able and efificient 
officer; St. Clair a brave, skilled and self-sacrificing one. The 
former did much to weaken Burgoyne,as became evident finally 
at Saratoga, though the partisans of Gates in Congress, led by 
Samuel Adams, again sent that weak officer to the North to 
reap the fruits of other men's labors; St. Clair, holding a post 
deemed impregnable, was confronted by the sharp alternative 
of sacrificing himself or his army, and heroically cast his own 
prestige to the winds and saved an army which was indispens- 
able to the final success of the campaign, and perhaps to the 
salvation of the cause itself. Burgoyne correctly judged that 
the possession of Ticonderoga was a barren victory without 
the capture or destruction of the American forces. The British 
plan of campaign, as already stated, was the junction at Al- 
bany of the army of General Howe advancing from New York, 
and the army of General Burgoyne descending from Canada. 
The latter, therefore, ordered an immediate pursuit by land and 
water of General St. Clair, as his retreat was accidentally re- 
vealed while the troops were marching out during the night 
by a fire on Mount Independence in the quarters of General 
Fermoy. The English historian, Gordon, charges that Fermoy^ 
contrary to positive orders, set fire to his house;," but the 
charge was denied by that officer, and no evidence was adduced 
to sustain it. In the confusion of a hasty flight it is probable 



o Gordon's " America," Vol. II, p. 482. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I33 

that the unfortunate fire, as more careful writers hold, was 
accidental. St. Clair's strength was greatly exaggerated by- 
newspapers, and the military authorities purposely encouraged 
the delusion in order to maintain the morale of the army, and 
to raise the spirits of the people sore pressed by the war. The 
folly of such a policy became apparent when the fortress was 
evacuated, and the Americans fled before the superior forces 
of Burgoyne. Consternation seized the public mind. Yet 
St. Clair's fault was not in retreating, but in staying so long. 
Mount Defiance or Sugar Hill was unfortified and commanded 
Ticonderoga. When the British took the former, the latter 
was at their mercy. Sullivan, Warner and Wooster had been 
compelled to fall back from Canada, and St. Clair was not 
strong enough to confront the powerful army of Burgoyne. 
The retreat was scarcely ordered before a hot pursuit began. 
The main column of the Americans reached Hubbardton the 
sam« day, twenty-two miles from Mount Independence, after a 
most fatiguing march. St. Clair by great exertions restored 
order among the confused regiments. He halted for two 
hours at Hubbardton. Most of the stragglers, who had been 
unable to keep up with their regiments, here rejoined the 
ranks, and nearly the whole rear guard arrived before St. Clair 
renewed the retreat. He placed Warner in command of the 
rear with positive instructions, as soon as the last of the troops 
came up, to follow the army to Castleton, six miles off, and to 
halt that night about a mile and a half behind the general's own 
force, until four o'clock in the morning, at which hour he was 
to resume the march and join the main body. Had this order 
been obeyed, all disaster, beyond the destruction of the stores 
and baggage of the troops at Skeensborough, would have been 



134 MATTHEW LYON 

avoided, and the movement have proved a brilhant retreat. 
But want of discipHne was one of the greatest difficulties 
against which the American generals had to contend through- 
out the whole Revolutionary war. Their men would not obey 
them. Washington was constantly embarrassed by laxity of 
discipline, and nowhere did he display more fortitude than in 
overcoming this defect among the brave but headstrong, self- 
opinionated farmers of his army. John Trumbull was in the 
camp at Crown Point after the retreat from Canada, and found, 
" not an army, but a mob * * * void of every idea of dis- 
cipline or subordination | * * * the officers as well as men 
of one Colony insulting and quarrelling with those of an- 
other."*^ 

Warner disobeyed St. Clair's order, and as his men, some 
twelve hundred in number, were greatly fatigued, he impru- 
dently remained that night at Hubbardton. Next morning 
about four o'clock St. Clair paraded his army at Castleton and 
waited in vain for Warner during two anxious hours. Fearing 
that the enemy would be upon them, he sent back an express to 
Warner and Francis at six o'clock with orders to join him 
instantly. But the enemy was already at hand, and the dis- 
astrous battle of Hubbardton took place. Warner fought with 
obstinate valor, and killed and wcnrnded many of the Hessians 
and English under Riedesel and Frazer, but was himself over- 
borne by numbers and defeated with great loss in killed, 
wounded and prisoners.^ The brave Colonel Francis was 



o " Life of Col. John Trumbull." 

l" Thompson, in his "History of Vermont," says "the British loss in 
killed and wounded was 183; the American loss in killed, wounded and 
prisoners, 324," p. 102. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I35 

killed. The remnant of the Americans fled to Manchester, 
and about one hundred of them joined St. Clair. That gallant 
officer had the mortification of being disobeyed by two cow- 
ardly militia regiments whom he ordered back to reinforce 
Warner while the battle was raging. The rest of his troops 
were too far on to return. The recreants were broken and dis- • 
banded, and on their return to Massachusetts Samuel Adams 
took up their defense, and strove to justify men who had al- 
lowed their countrymen to be cut to pieces, and with craven 
insubordination refused to enter the fight when their assistance 
probably would have saved the day. 

It was at this perilous juncture that Matthew Lyon, who had 
led a detachment of Green Mountain Boys into the fight at 
Hubbardton, and aided Warner in his heroic but unavailing 
struggle, now rendered the most important military service of 
his life, and enrolled his name among the heroes of the Revolu- 
tion. In the valuable letter to Mason, Lyon said: " I was in 
my station of adjutant in the retreat from Ticonderoga in 
1777." The fight of Hubbardton took place on the 7th of July. 
That night a heavy rain fell, and the fleeing army of St. Clair, 
with the enemy already in possession of Skeensborough, and 
Riedesel's forces in their rear, found themselves without 
proper guides struggling on through the Vermont wilderness 
in mud and rain, uncertain of the route to pursue, and liable to 
march into the lines of Burgoyne in their efforts to extricate 
themselves from the perils that environed them. It was a 
moment of deep anxiety to General St. Clair, and his keen, mili- 
tary eye was watchful to prevent a possible ambuscade. Every 
camp follower was kept under strict observation, and sus- 
picious characters were rigidly scrutinized lest lurking spies 



136 MATTHEW LYON 

and Tories might endanger his safe retreat. During the night 
a young man claiming to be a Green Mountain Boy, and de- 
claring himself a woodman and pioneer thoroughly acquainted 
with the route to Bennington, and the only road to the Hudson 
river which the army could safely take, presented himself at 
the outposts and aroused the suspicions of the guard by the 
boldness of his pretensions, and the earnestness of his oflfer to 
act as guide to the imperiled troops. He was placed under 
arrest and conducted to headquarters. General St. Clair 
recognized the young stranger at once as Lieutenant Matthew 
Lyon, a man devoted to the cause, whom General Gates had 
so cruelly and unjustly cashiered during the preceding summer, 
and whom Governor Chittenden and the Green Mountain 
leaders had welcomed back to their councils as a true and gal- 
lant patriot. Matthew Lyon was universally recognized as 
every inch a forester, as much at home in the wilds of the Green 
Mountains as Daniel Boone in the forests of Kentucky. There 
was no other man in New England whom General St. Clair 
would have welcomed so heartily to his camp as this bold 
woodman on that dark and perilous night. He was well known 
to the officers of the army, and many a gallant man breathed 
a sigh of relief when the General instantly accepted the new- 
comer as a guide to the army, and ordered the head of the 
column to follow his lead and press forward confidently where- 
ever Lieutenant Lyon directed. The new guide immediately 
ordered a detour through the woods, and saved the army from 
impending capture. 

The English historian Gordon refers to this detour in the 
following sentence : " While St. Clair was at Castleton an 
officer of one of the sfallies arrived with information that the 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I37 

British were pursuing in force towards Skeensborough, and 
would reach it before he could get there. This determined 
him to change his route and to strike into the woods on his 
left, lest he should be intercepted at Fort Anne."'* The officer 
of the galley knew as little about the country as St. Clair, and 
the change of route was made under the sole direction and 
leadership of Matthew Lyon. The following testimony, from 
a distinguished officer of St. Clair's army, makes this absolutely 
plain. This was the celebrated General Wilkinson, after- 
wards at the head of the armies of the United States, who 
bears grateful testimony to the signal and opportune 
service rendered by Matthew Lyon on this occasion. 
" General Burgoyne's anticipation,"^ says Wilkinson, " of Gen- 
eral St. Clair at Skeensborough, information of which he re- 
ceived at Castleton, obliged him to change his line of march, 
and by a circuitous route through Pawlet, Manchester and 
Bennington, he struck the Hudson river at Batten-Kill, and 
joined General Schuyler at Fort Edward on the 12th of July. 
The night of the 7th being extremely dark and rainy, one of the 
guards took up and reported to headquarters a young man sus- 
pected of being a spy. I visited the guard, and found the 
prisoner to be a Lieutenant Lyon of the militia, since Mr. 
Matthew Lyon, of Congress, who had joined us to ofifer his 
services as a guide, of whom we stood in great need, being 
strangers to the country, which was in general a wilderness, a 
town having sometimes barely a cabin or two to distinguish it; 
even Bennington, the seat of the government of the Hamp- 



a Gordon's " America," Vol. II, p. 484, London edition, 1788. 
* Wilkinson uses the word "anticipation" as a euphuism for the 
capture and destruction of the post. 



138 MATTHEW LYON 

shire grantees, could not number more than a dozen log cabins, 
which were however surrounded by a considerable tract of im- 
proved ground. Lieutenant Lyon, an active, ardent young 
man, was extremely zealous, and accompanied us as long as his 
services were useful; he had been stationed the preceding cam- 
paign, with a party of militia at Otter Creek, in a subordinate 
capacity; the post was evacuated without orders, and Lieuten- 
ant Lyon has been censured for that transaction, although he 
opposed the measure, and on an investigation was acquitted 
of blame."*^ Lyon said in the letter to Mason: " On account 
of the services I rendered that army in that dilBcult retreat, the 
generals who had seen me abused the year before procured 
for me an appointment of paymaster in the regiment on the 
Continental establishment, with the rank of captain in the 
army." 

The incapacity and harshness of Gates received a just rebuke 
when Schuyler, his successor in command, promptly restored 
Lyon to the army and promoted him to a higher rank than he 
had held at the time of the causeless cashiering. Of this Lyon 
writes as follows in his letter to the editor of " The Spirit of 
'76 " : " The oldest and most experienced ofificers of the court- 
martial disapproved the sentence and obtained for me almost 
immediate promotion. The sentence was never communi- 
cated to me in public. The commanding general sent for me 
and in his room communicated the sentence, remitted the dis- 
qualification, and advised me to accept a first lieutenancy in a 
Continental regiment then offered me." 



o" Memoirs of My Own Times," by General James Wilkinson, vol. I, 
p. 189. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I39 

In speaking later on of his dismissal from the army by Gates, 
Lyon said: " I always understood he reversed the sentence." 

This was probably true. General Schuyler's reinstatement 
of Lyon might have required otherwise another court-martial, 
had the sentence of the former one been in force. St. Clair no 
doubt represented to Schuyler that Lyon's acquaintance with 
the country, and his bravery and devotion in the hour of great- 
est peril had proved of incalculable assistance to him in effect- 
ing the safe retreat to Fort Edward. Such services were re- 
quited by the commanding general in a suitable manner; he 
wiped out the Gates stigma and assigned Lyon to immediate 
duty as paymaster to Col. Seth Warner's regiment. 

This was a post of trust and some distinction which had been 
previously filled by a Connecticut officer, son of a member of 
the Continental Congress. For some reason the officer, who 
was popular, had been cashiered, and there was much feeling 
in the regiment over the affair. The young man's father 
brought it to the attention of Congress with a view to rein- 
statement. The feeling in the regiment and the father's in- 
fluence operated in favor of the former paymaster, and ren- 
dered the position by no means a pleasant one to his successor. 
Captain Lyon encountered this dissatisfaction, but as it was 
not directed against himself personally, his good sense and tact, 
and a certain riant frankness of spirit peculiarly his own, soon 
won over officers and soldiers alike, and made the new pay- 
master as great a favorite as the former one. The movement 
in behalf of the displaced officer had not been given over, nor 
had his father's strenuous but unavailing efforts to secure his 
reinstatement yet been abandoned when Captain Lyon came 
into the regiment. It was probably on this account, and to 



140 MATTHEW LYON 

soften disappointment among the soldiers that the General an- 
nounced the change as a temporary appointment. 

The following is an extract from General Schuyler's letter to 
Colonel Warner, announcing the appointment of Lyon : 

" Fort Edward, July 15, 1777. 

" Dear Colonel. — I am favored with yours of yesterday. I enclose 
you an order for what clothing can be procured at Albany, which must 
be sent for. I have made a temporary appointment of M. Lyon to 
be your Pay Master, and have given him four thousand dollars, which 
is all I can at present spare. Colonel Simmonds, with four or five 
hundred of his regiment will join yours; but let the others come this 
way. ♦ * * Advance as near to the enemy as you possibly can. 
Secure all tories, and send them to the interior part of the country. 
Be vigilant; a surprise is inexcusable. Thank the troops in my name 
for behaving so well as you say they did at Hubbardton. Assure them 
that I will get whatever I can to make them comfortable. All of your 
regiment that were here afe already on the way to join you. If we act 
vigorously, we save the country. * * * Cheer up the spirits of 
the people in your quarter. 

"P. SCHUYLER."» 

On his appointment as paymaster, Lyon immediately re- 
paired to Manchester, where the regiment was stationed. 
He held the position until the close of the campaign and took 
part in the glorious battle of Saratoga. His resignation after 
the capture of Burgoyne's army caused much regret in his 
regimental family. He was urged by all to remain, but when 
he explained that important duties summoned him home, and 
farewell was spoken, he bore away with him the affectionate 
sentiments and hearty good wishes of his companions in arms.'' 

It is not known whether he was a member of the Windsor 
Convention of July 2, 1777, as " the journal of that convention 

"" Collections of the Vermont Historical Society," vol. I, p. i86. 
'' Lyon's Congressional Narrative. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I4I 

was never printed, * * * ^^d not even a full list of the 
members is extant."" 

The condition of the country was never so unsettled 
as in the year 1777. A wilderness only partly re- 
claimed furnished at the best hut scant supplies to the 
people, and the British government had now placed powerful 
armies and fleets in cooperation in one supreme effort to sub- 
jugate New England and New York. Burgoyne's savage al- 
lies and more savage proclamations were spreading terror 
among defenseless women and children, and as his army ad- 
vanced not a few among the settlers on the Grants lost heart 
and deserted to the enemy. Overwhelming disasters occurred 
on all sides and paralyzed the business of the Windsor Con- 
vention. The Indians, whose favorite weapons were the torch 
and tomahawk, were now let loose in the district where most 
of the delegates resided, and when news came of St. Clair's 
retreat, dreadful apprehensions for their wives and little ones 
spurred every one to instant departure. At this moment, as in 
Virginia at a later day when Patrick Henry was addressing the 
convention upon the ratification or rejection of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, a violent storm burst forth and dark- 
ness like an incubus sat down upon the earth. Lightning 
blinded the sight and thunder deafened the ears of the dele- 
gates, and the house in which they sat shook with the fury of 
the tempest. Departure from the building was impossible, 
and the members thus forced to tarry, resumed business, 
bravely put the Constitution on its final reading and adopted 
it. Although not submitted to the people for ratification, this 

"Address of Rev. Pliney H. White before the Vermont Historical 
Society, at Windsor, July 2, 1863. 



142 MATTHEW LYON 

Constitution was acquiesced in and as strictly obeyed as 
though that formality or essentiality had been observed. 
While there were no officers to administer the affairs of the 
State, it became necessary to entrust the destinies of Vermont 
to a Council of its best men with powers absolute and unlimited. 
This celebrated body, since known as the Old Council of 
Safety, was chosen by the Windsor Convention as its last act 
before adjournment. Of this Council there is authority for 
saying that Matthew Lyon was a member. That careful Ver- 
mont antiquarian, Rev. Pliny H. White, in his Windsor ad- 
dress of July 2, 1863, spoke as follows: " No list of the mem- 
bers of this Council is extant, but it is known that Thomas 
Chittenden, Ira Allen, Moses Robinson, Jonas Fay, Joseph 
Fay, Paul Spooner, Nathan Clark and Jacob Bayley were of 
the number, and there is good reason to believe that Samuel 
Robinson, Matthew Lyon, Thos. Rowley, Gideon Olin and 
Benjamin Carpenter were also members. Its powers were un- 
defined, and practically were unlimited, but they were exercised 
with great discretion, and with a single eye to the welfare of 
Vermont."" The Windsor Convention having thus adopted a 
State Constitution and selected a Council of Safety, adjourned 
on the 8th of July, news of the evacuation of Ticonderoga, the 
flight of the Americans, the pursuit by the British,' and of a 
fierce battle at Hubbardton, having brought the proceedings 
to a sudden close, and filled the members, as above stated, with 
the utmost anxiety and alarm. The Council of Safety repaired 
to Manchester where it was in session until the 24th of July,** 



a" Collections of the Vermont Historical Society," vol. I, p. 63. 
''Letter of Colonel Warner to Gen Stark. Collections Vermont 
Historical Society, I, 190. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I43 

when it adjourned for a few days to Sunderland, and on the 
28th of July to Bennington, at which place it was in session 
for the remainder of the campaign." Ira Allen in his " His- 
tory of Vermont " is not exact in dates. He informs us of the 
sitting of the Council of Safety at the three above-mentioned 
places, and from his text the inference is drawn that the memor- 
able step was taken for the appointment of Commissioners of 
Sequestration, not at Manchester, but at Sunderland. As this 
far-reaching measure originated with Allen, his account of it 
is important. " The Council of Safety," he says, " had no 
money or revenue at command, and all expresses were sup- 
ported at their private expense ; yet, in this situation it became 
necessary to raise men for the defense of the frontiers, with 
bounties and wages; ways and means were to be found out, 
and the day was spent in debating on the subject. Nathan 
Clark, not convinced of the practicability of raising a regiment, 
moved in council that Mr. Ira Allen, the youngest member of 
Council, and who insisted on raising a regiment, while a ma- 
jority of the Council were for only two companies, of sixty 
men each, might be requested to discover ways and means to 
raise and support a regiment, and to make his report at sun- 
rising on the morrow. The Council acquiesced, and Mr. Allen 
took the matter into consideration. Next morning, at sun- 
rising, the Council met, and he reported the ways and means to 
raise and support a regiment, viz.: That the Council should 
appoint Commissioners of Sequestration, with authority to 
seize the goods and chattels of all persons who had or should 
join the common enemy; and that all property so seized should 



*Ira Allen's History of Vermont, pp. 93-94- Slade's State Papers, 
pp. 197-223. 



144 MATTHEW LYON 

be sold at public vendue, and the proceeds paid to the treasurer 
of the Council of Safety, for the purpose of paying the bounties 
and wages of a regiment forthwith to be raised for the defense 
of the State. Tlie Council adopted the measure and appointed 
officers for the regiment. Samuel Herrick, Esq., was ap- 
pointed the colonel, and the men enlisted, and the bounties 
paid in fifteen days, out of the confiscated property of the 
enemies of the new State. This was the first instance in Amer- 
ica of seizing and selling the property of the enemies of Amer- 
ican independence."** 

A graphic account of the proceedings of the Old Council 
of Safety is contained in the address of Hon. D. P. Thompson 
delivered in 1850 before the Vermont Historical Society, and 
published by order of the Legislature, the members of both 
Houses having been present at its delivery. Mr. Thompson's 
warmth of coloring and historical fidelity have been adversely 
criticised by Hon. E. P. Walton, editor of that valuable work, 
" The Governor and Council," but Hon. David Read, a writer 
of much accuracy as to facts, uses Thompson's account with- 
out question in his sketch of Governor Chittenden. Delivered 
before a body devoted to historical inquiries, and published by 
the Legislature, the Thompson production is recommended to 
favor by this high endorsement. An address, moreover, which 
elicited the following resolution is surely entitled to respectful 
consideration: " Montpelier, Vt., October 29, 1850. Resolved, 
by the Senate and House of Representatives: That the Secre- 
tary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representa- 
tives be instructed to solicit from the Hon. Daniel P. Thomp- 
son a copy of the interesting and valuable address pronounced 

Ira Allen's History of Vermont, pp. 96-97. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I45 

by him before the Vermont Historical Society, in presence of 
the two Houses, on the evening of the 24th instant, and that 
the Secretary and Clerk procure two thousand copies thereof 
to be printed and distributed under the direction of his Excel- 
lency the Governor." In communicating this resolution to 
the orator, the Secretary and Clerk added: "We take occasion 
to express the hope that you will comply with the unanimous 
desire of the two Houses, m which the entire audience, on the 
occasion alluded to, participated." 

Mr. Thompson was careful to cite the authority from which 
he derived the material facts of his narrative, namely, Ira 
Allen, a member of the Council of Safety, and " from the lips 
of old men now passed away, and especially of one whom this 
year has numbered with the dead, Daniel Chipman, and who, 
then an observant boy, was permitted to be an eye and ear 
witness of all that occurred in the debate, which we will try to 
bring up as a living and truthful picture directly to the senses." 
The orator introduces the audience to the Old Council of 
Safety at its most interesting and important session. As Mat- 
thew Lyon is declared to have been one of the leading actors 
in the animated scene depicted by Mr. Thompson, the follow- 
ing passages from his address are appropriate in this place: 

" In obedience to the order of the Convention they (the 
Council of Safety) had promptly assembled at Manchester and 
commenced the worse than Egyptian task devolving on 
them — that of making adequate provisions for .the public de- 
fense, while the means were almost wholly wanting. For with 
scarcely the visible means in the whole settlement, in its then 
exhausted and unsettled condition, of raising and supporting 
a single company of soldiers, they were expected to raise an 



146 MATTHEW LYON 

army; without the shadow of a public treasury, and without 
any credit as a State, and without the power of taxing- the 
people, which, by the Constitution just adopted, could only 
be done by a legislature not yet called, they were required to 
do that for which half a million was needed. Such were the 
difificulties by which they were met at the outset — difficulties 
which to men of ordinary stamina and mental resources would 
have been insurmountable. But the members of the Old 
Council of Safety were not men of ordinary stamina, either 
moral or mental, and the results of their action amid all these 
difficulties and discouragements were soon to evince it to 
the world. The particular time, however, we have chosen for 
lifting the curtain from their secret proceedings was at the 
darkest and most disheartening hour they were doomed to 
experience, and before their united mind had been brought 
to bear on any measure affording the least promise of auspi- 
cious results. * * * 

" The long summer day was drawing to a close * * * 
when the doorkeeper, with unwonted haste and an agitated 
manner, entered the room and announced to the astonished 
members the alarming tidings that one of their own number, 
and till that day an active participator in their discussions, 
had proved a Judas, and was now, with a band of his recreant 
neighbors, on his way to the British Camp. This news fell 
like a thunder-clap on the Council, producing at first a sensa- 
tion not often witnessed in so grave an assemblage. But no 
formal comments were offered, and after the commotion had 
subsided, all sank into a thoug^htful silence, which we will 
improve by personal introductions of all the leading members 




FIRST GOVERNOR OF VERMONT. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I47 

of this body, whom we are now to suppose sitting before us 
digesting the tidings just announced. 

" Separated from the rest by a sort of enclosure composed 
of tables strung across one end of the apartment, which was 
the large upper room of the old tavern in Manchester, and 
which had been hastily fitted up for the occasion, sat the Presi- 
dent of the Council — the venerable Thomas Chittenden, the 
wise, the prudent and the good, who was to Vermont what 
Washington was to the whole country, and who, though pos- 
sessing no dazzling greatness, had yet that rare combination 
of moral and intellectual qualities which was far better — good 
sense, great discretion, honesty of purpose, and an unvarying 
equanimity of temper, united with a modest and pleasing 
address. * * * On the left of the President, on one of 
the plain benches that ran along the walls in front, immersed 
in thought, sat side by side, like brothers as they were, the two 
Fays — those intelligent and persevering friends of freedom and 
State independence. Further along sat the two Robinsons, 
alike patriotic and active or able, according to the different 
spheres in which they were about to be distinguished — one 
in the tented field, and the other on the Bench and in the 
Councils of the Nation. 

" Next to them was seen the short, burly form of the un- 
compromising Matthew Lyon, the Irish refugee, who was will- 
ing to be sold, as he was, to pay his passage, for a pair of 
two-year-old bulls, by which he was wont to swear on all extra 
occasions — thus sold for the sake of getting out of the King- 
tainted atmosphere of the Old World, into one where his 
broad chest could expand freely, and his bold, free spirit soar 
untrammeled by the clogs of legitimacy. In his eagle eye, and 



148 MATTHEW LYON 

every lineament of his clear, ardent and fearless countenance, 
might be read the promise of what he was to become — the 
stern Democrat and unflinching champion of the whole right 
and the largest liberty." 

Brief sketches are given of the leading members of the 
Council. The thoughtful Benjamin Carpenter, the mild Na- 
than Clark, future Speaker of the Legislature, stem Gideon 
Olin, afterwards a Congressman, Thomas Rowley, the poet 
of the Green Mountains, and Paul Spooner, the busy man of 
afifairs, are all crayoned out in Mr. Thompson's clever sketch. 
Ira Allen is described more fully: " So much the junior of his 
colleagues was he, that a spectator might well wonder why 
he was selected as one of such a sage body. But those who 
procured his appointment knew full well why they had done 
so; and his history thenceforward was destined to prove a con- 
tinued justification of their opinion. Both in form and feature, 
he was one of the handsomest men of his day; while a mind 
at once versatile, clear and penetrating, with perceptions as 
quick as light, was stamped on his Grecian brow, found a live- 
lier expression in his flashing black eyes and other lineaments 
of his intellectual countenance. Such, as he appeared for the 
first time on the stage of public action, was the afterwards 
noted Ira Allen whose true history, when written, will show 
him to have been either secretly or openly the originator or 
successful prosecutor of more important political measures 
affecting the interests and independence of the State, and the 
issues of the war in the Northern Department, than any other 
individual in Vermont; making him, with the many peculiar 
traits he possessed, one of the most remarkable men of the 
times in which he so conspicuously figured. ' I have finished,* 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I49 

said Spooner, breaking the gloomy silence which had so long 
pervaded the assembly, ' I have finished the despatch, Mr. 
President, requiring the attendance of General Bailey, the ab- 
sent member from Newbury, and I have ventured to add the 
news of the defection of that miserable Squire Spencer.' * 'Tis 
all well,' responded the President; 'but I had hoped to have 
forwarded by the same messenger, a despatch requesting the 
aid of New Hampshire. But how can we expect they will do 
anything till we do something for ourselves — till they know 
whether they will find among us more friends to feed and 
assist than enemies to impede them? And I submit to you, 
gentlemen, whether it is not now high time to act to some 
purpose? If we can't vote taxes, we can contribute towards 
raising a military force, if you will agree to raise one. Instead 
of being disheartened by the conduct of the traitor Spencer, 
who has, perhaps, providentially left us before we had settled 
on any plan of operations which he could report to the enemy, 
let us show him and the world that the rest of us can be men! 
I have ten head of cattle which, by way of example, I will give 
for the emergency. But am I more patriotic than the rest of 
you here, and hundreds of others in the settlement? My wife 
has a valuable gold necklace; hint to her to-day that it is 
needed, and my word for it, to-morrow will find it in the treas- 
ury of freedom. But is my wife more spirited than yours and 
others? Gentlemen, I wait your propositions.' 

" During this effective appeal drooping heads began to be 
raised — perplexed countenances began to brighten, and by the 
time he had closed several speakers were on their feet eager 
to respond. 



150 MATTHEW LYON 

" ' Mr. Carpenter has the floor, gentlemen,' said the Presi- 
dent, evidently wishing that discreet and firm man should lead 
off as a sort of guide to the warm emotions he saw rising. 

" ' I rose,' said Carpenter, * to give my hearty response to the 
sentiments of the Chair. It is time, high time to act. I have 
no definite proposition now to ofTer; but within one hour I 
will have one, if others are not before me in the matter. For 
it is a crime to dally any longer, and from this moment action 
shall be my motto.' 

" 'Aye, action ! action!' responded several. 

*' 'Action let it be, then,' said the impulsive Rowley, the next 
to speak; ' and I will make a proposition that will give gentle- 
men all the action they will want, besides setting an example 
which will show works as well as faith. I propose, Mr. Presi- 
dent, that each one of us here, before any more of us run 
away to the enemy, seize a standard, repair singly to the 
different hamlets among our mountains, cause the summoning 
drum to be beat for volunteers, whom we will ourselves lead 
to do battle with this Jupiter Olympus of a British General, 
who has so nearly annihilated us by force of Proclamation.' 

" 'Tom Rowley all over! but a gallant push nevertheless,' 
exclaimed Samuel Robinson in an undertone, ' and yet, Mr. 
President,' he continued, rising, ' if our spirited colleague's pro- 
posal should be carried into effect, we should still want a regu- 
larly enlisted force to serve as a nucleus to volunteers, espe- 
cially under such ofBcers as most of us would make.' 'I move,' 
exclaimed Samuel Robinson, ' we vote to raise a company of 
an hundred men, which will be as many as all the contributions 
we can obtain among our poor and distressed people will 
equip and support very long in the field.' 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I5I 

" ' And I,' said Clark, ' believing we many venture to go a 
little higher than that, propose to raise two companies of sixty 
each.' 

No, no,' cried several voices. ' One company — means 
can be found for no more.' 

" ' Yes, yes, the larger number — I go for two companies,' 
cried others. 

" ' And I go for neither, Mr. President,' said Ira Allen, dash- 
ing down his pen upon the table, by the side of which he had 
been sitting in deep cogitation. ' I have heard all the proposi- 
tions yet advanced — see the difficulties of all, and yet I see a 
way by which we can do something more worthy the character 
of the Green Mountain Boys, and that too without infringing 
the Constitution or distressing the people. I therefore move, 
Sir, that this Council resolve to raise a whole regiment of men, 
appoint their officers, and take such prompt measures for their 
enlistment that within one week every glen in our mountains 
shall resound with the din of military preparations.' 

" * Chimerical! ' said one who, in common with the rest of 
the Council, seemed to hear with much surprise a proposition 
of such magnitude so confidently put forth, when the general 
doubt appeared to be whether even the comparatively trifling 
one of Qark should be adopted. 

Impossible — utterly impossible to raise pay for half of 
them,' exclaimed others. 

Don't let us say that till compelled to,' said Carpenter in 
an encouraging tone. ' Though I don't now see where the 
means are to come from, yet new light may break in on us by 
another day, so that we can see our way clear to sustain this 
proposition. If there should be, we should feel like men again.' 



152 MATTHEW LYON 

" ' Amen to all that,' responded Clark, ' and as the hour of 
adjournment has arrived, I move that our young colleague 
who seems so confident in the matter of means, be a committee 
of one to devise those ways and means to pay the bounties and 
wages of the regiment he proposes, and that he make his report 
thereof by sunrise to-morrow morning.' 

" ' I second that motion, so plase ye, Mr. President,' cried 
Lyon in his usual full determined tone and Irish accent, ' I go 
for Mr. Allen's proposition entirely, manes or no manes. But 
the manes must and shall be found. We will put the brave 
gentleman's brains under the screw to-night,' he added jo- 
cosely, ' and if he appears empty handed in the morning, he 
ought to be expelled from the Council. Aye, and I'll move it 
too, by the two bulls that redamed me.' 

" ' I accept the terms! ' said Allen, ' give me a room by my- 
self, pen, ink, paper and candles, and I will abide the con- 
dition.' 

" ' For your light, Mr. Allen, as your task is to find money 
where there is none to any common view, I would advise you 
to borrow the wonderful lamp of Aladdin,' gaily added Rowley, 
as the Council broke up and separated for the night. 

" At sunrise the next morning all the Council were in their 
seats to receive the promised report. * * * Allen, with 
his papers in hand, came in and, after announcing his readiness 
to report, calmly proceeded to unfold his plan, which was noth- 
ing more nor less than the bold and undreamed of step of con- 
fiscating, seizing and, on the shortest legal notice, selling at 
the post the estate of every Tory in Vermont, for the public 
service! 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 1 53 

" The speaker having read his report, consisting of a decree 
of confiscation, drawn up ready for adoption by the Council, 
and a Hst of candidates or nominations of officers for a regi- 
ment of Rangers, he quickly resumed his seat and patiently 
awaited the action of the Council. But they were taken by 
such complete surprise by a proposition at that time so new 
in the Colonies, so bold and so startling in its character, that 
for many minutes not a word or whisper was heard through 
the hushed assembly whose bowed heads and working counte- 
nances showed how intensely their minds were engaged in 
trying to grapple with the subject matter on which their action 
was so unexpectedly required. 

" Soon, however, low murmurs of doubt or disapproval 
began to be heard, and the expressions — Unprecedented step! 
Doubtful policy! Injury to the cause! became distinguishable 
among the more timid in different parts of the room, — when 
the prompt and fearless Matthew Lyon, whose peculiar traits of 
intellect had made him the first to meet and master the proposi- 
tion which jumped so well with his feelings, and whose con- 
sequent resolve to support it was only strengthened by the 
tokens of rising opposition he perceived around him, now 
sprang to his feet, and bringing his broad palms together with 
a loud slap, exultingly exclaimed: 'The child is born, Mr. 
President! My head,' he continued, ' has been in a continual 
fog ever since we met, till the present moment. But now, 
thank God, I can see my way out of it; I can now see at a 
glance how all we want can be readily, aye, and righteously, 
accomplished! I can already see a regiment of our brave 
mountaineers in arms before me as the certain fruits of this 
bold, bright thought of our youn§ friend here.' 



154 MATTHEW LYON 

" ' Unprecedented step, is it? It may be so with us timid 
Republicans; but is it so with our enemies, who are this mo- 
ment threatening to crush us because we object to receive their 
law and precedent? How, in Heaven's name, were they to 
obtain the lands of half Vermont, which they offered the lion- 
hearted Ethan Allen if he would join them, but by confiscating 
our estates? What became of the estates of those in their 
country who, like ourselves, rebelled against their govern- 
ment? Why, sir, they were confiscated! Can they complain, 
then, if we adopt a measure, which, in case we are vanquished, 
they will visit upon our estates, to say nothing of our necks? 
And can these recreant rascals themselves, who have left their 
property among us, and gone off to help fasten the very law and 
precedent on us, complain of our doing what they will be the 
first to recommend to be done to us, if their side prevails? 
Where, then, is the doubtful policy of our anticipating them in 
the measure, any more than seizing one of their loaded guns 
in battle and turning it against them? 

" ' Injury to the cause will it be? Will it injure our cause 
here, where men are daily deserting to the British in the belief 
that we shall not dare touch their property, to strike a blow 
that will deter all the wavering, and most others of any prop- 
erty, from leaving us hereafter? Will it injure our cause here, 
to have a regiment of regular troops who will draw into the 
field four times their numbers of volunteers? If that be an 
injury, Mr. President, I only wish we had more of them! With 
half a dozen such injuries we would rout Burgoyne's whole 
army in a fortnight. I go, then, for the proposition to the 
death, Mr. President. Yes, by the two bulls that redamed me 
I will go it! ' 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I55 

" The ice was broken. This bold dash of rough, argumenta- 
tive eloquence, so adroitly addressed to men of such mould, 
had reached cords that rose responsive to the touch and gave a 
direction to the naturally favoring current of their feelings, 
which was not to be diverted. The more ready and fearless, 
one after another, now stepped forward, removed obstructions, 
and gave additional force to the gathering impetus. The 
President, on whom all eyes were turned, was seen nodding 
his approbation in spite of all his prudence. The timid rapidly 
gained strength, the doubters at length yielded, and within two 
hours this all important measure, which in the eventful period 
of forty days named at the outset, became the pivot on which 
the destinies of Vermont were turned, was unanimously 
adopted."" 

Colonel Herrick's regiment was immediately raised and 
equipped, the sinews of war in this crisis being obtained out of 
the proceeds of sales of personal property of tories and traitors. 
The soldiers thus placed in the field took part in the ever 
memorable battle of Bennington, turning point in the tide of 
war in the North, as the battle of King's Mountain proved in 
the South, the former leading to the overthrow of Burgoyne 
at Saratoga and to the alliance between France and the United 
States, and the latter to the surrender of Comwallis at York- 
town and the recognition of American independence by George 
the Third. Captain Lyon as paymaster to Warner's regiment 
fought at Bennington, where his regiment covered itself with 
glory, and he also took part in the battles around Saratoga, 
repairing, as he himself afterwards said in Congress, to the 

o Address before the Vermont Historical Society, by Daniel P. 
Thompson. Burlington: 1850. 



156 MATTHEW LYON 

trenches every morning, musket in hand, in that grand strug- 
gle where the Hon flag of England went down in fatal defeat 
before the Stars and Stripes of the nascent Republic. In his 
Frankfort letter to Senator Mason, which the author has found 
so useful in explaining many things that were obscure, Lyon 
said that while he was paymaster to Warner's regiment, " be- 
sides attending to the duties of my station, I with my gun and 
bayonet was in many rencounters and assisted at the taking of 
Burgoyne, and had the honor and pleasure of seeing his army 
pile their arms." He continues: "In 1778, the regiment 
having lost near two-thirds of its number in the many battles 
and affairs of 1777, was ordered to the southward, where it was 
expected it would be incorporated with other regiments and 
the supernumerary ofificers discharged. At the request of my 
Vermont friends I resigned my station in the army, and the 
next week was chosen and appointed a captain in the militia. 
I was immediately appointed paymaster-general of the troops 
and the militia of the State, Secretary to the Governor and 
Council, and assistant to the Treasurer." 

Lyon had now become a leader in Vermont, his untiring 
activity, excellent business qualities, and ardor in the cause of 
independence all having conspired to bring him forward. Gov- 
ernor Chittenden admired him greatly, and felt the want of such 
a man in the emergencies which crowded thickly upon him. 
Ethan Allen was in captivity, Remember Baker dead, Warner 
and Cochran were absent in the Continental Army, and now 
Ira Allen and Matthew Lyon became the chief counsellors and 
supporters of the Governor in the arduous task of defending 
Vermont from the attacks of its numerous enemies. Arling- 
ton was the Tory headquarters in the State. Jehiel Hawley, 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 157 

the leading man there, openly prayed for the King; Abel Bene- 
dict deserted to the British and was killed at the battle of Ben- 
nington; at least five or six other Arlington men were in the 
army of Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. The stay-at-home 
men were in secret correspondence with the enemy." Either 
the Tory stronghold must be reduced, or the patriots in Ver- 
mont were in danger of being driven out of the country. " At 
this juncture," says a writer in the "Vermont Historical Maga- 
zine," " Thomas Chittenden, Matthew Lyon and John Fassett, 
Jr., moved into the town and took possession of confiscated 
property. Captain Fassett took Bisco's house ; Thomas Chit- 
tenden, Captain Hawley's; Colonel Lyon, the one opposite, 
now west of the railroad depot. Between Chittenden's and 
Lyon's a vault was dug and walled up with plank and timber, 
to be used as a jail. Ethan Allen was the neighbor of Fassett, 
and Ira Allen was at Sunderland, three miles distant. Every- 
thing being ready the Council erected its judgment seat, and 
woe to the Tory who was summoned to its presence. * * * 
It were to little purpose," continues this writer, who appears 
to have a soft place in his heart for Tories, " to enter into a 
detail of the proceedings of the Governor and Council while 
at Arlington. It is enough to say that the Commissioners of 
Sequestration were not idle. There was little, if any, resis- 
tance. Their foes were completely disheartened by the turn 
which events had taken.'"* 

One of the most painstaking investigators of the early his- 
torical landmarks of Vermont was the late E. P. Walton, 
editor of " Governor and Council/' and also editor of the 

« Vermont Historical Magazine, vol. I, p. 130. 

^ Vermont Historical Magazine, article Arlington, by Rev. F. A. 
Wadleigh, vol. I, p. 130. 



158 , MATTHEW LYON 

" Vermont Watchman." He had great industry and mental 
clearness, and only reached his conclusions after carefully sift- 
ing all the evidence. No list of the members of the Old Coun- 
cil of Safety is extant, and many names have been suggested 
as claimants to the honor of membership. Mr. Walton ex- 
amined the claims of all with admirable patience and fairness, 
and his judgment is entitled to the respectful attention of his- 
torical scholars. The Council consisted of twelve members, 
eleven of which, Mr. Walton concluded, had been ascertained 
beyond reasonable doubt. He then addressed himself to the 
discovery of the twelfth member, and the result of his investi- 
gation is summed up as follows: 

" The last name on the Rev. Mr. White's list, and most 
probably the right one to be selected, is that of Matthew Lyon, 
then of ArHngton."" A number of "Additions and Correc- 
tions " appears at the end of the first volume of " Governor 
and Council," one of which is in the shape of an opinion com- 
municated to the editor by Mr. Henry S. Dana, of Woodstock, 
Vt. " This gentleman," says Mr. Walton, " is of opinion that 
Matthew Lyon was not a member of the Council of Safety, for 
the reasons that, in 1798, in his defense before the Committee 
of Privileges of Congress on the Griswold afTair, and in his 
speech on the subsequent resolution of expulsion, he named 
sundry of his services and offices in Vermont, and did not 
name membership in the Committee of Safety;^ and also that, 

« Records of the Council of Safety and Governor and Council of the 
State of Vermont, vol. I, p. 71. Montpelier: 1873. 

^ " Committee " probably a misprint for " Council," as Lyon did de- 
clare in the speech referred to that he was a member of the Committee 
of Safety of the Hampshire Grants, and, besides, the Council of Safety 
was the body evidently meant by Mr. Dana. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 1 59 

for a period after his retreat from Jericho in 1776, he was ' in 
disgrace.' Both of these points are alluded to in the text; and 
the first one (suggested on page y^) is strong enough to make 
one doubt, at least; but after all, the editor has not been able 
to find a person with so good a claim to the honor as Lyon 
had. Mr. Dana suggested Hon. Benjamin Emmons in lieu of 
Lyon, remarking that some of Mr. E.'s descendants ranked him 
as one of the Council of Safety. In a subsequent letter, how- 
ever, Mr. D. wrote thus: 'I think Lyon is excluded by his 
own witness, but I rather think you will never be able to prove 
that Emmons had a much better right to the place — nothing 
beyond hearsay.' "" 

The present writer has probably had the best opportunity 
to examine the writings and speeches of Matthew Lyon, and 
will devote the rest of this chapter to a resume of the public 
stations known to have been held by him, and of those prob- 
ably held by him, but of which the evidence is not certain, 
during the period from his arrival in the Hampshire Grants 
in 1774 to his advent in Arlington as Secretary of the Gov- 
ernor and Council, April 9, 1778. 

He was probably a member of each of the three conventions 
held respectively, at Manchester January 31, 1775, in which 
Wallingford was represented;^ at Dorset July 26, 177s f and 
at the same place January 16, 1776.^ The lists of delegates 
are not preserved. Lyon was active in Wallingford afifairs 
during this period, having submitted to the young Whigs in 

Records of the Council of Safety and Governor, etc., of Vermont, 
pp. 526-7. 

& Vermont Historical Society, I, p. 8. 
c Ibid, p. 9. 
d Ibid, p. II. 



l6o MATTHEW LYON 

his neighborhood in 1774 a scheme for a mihtary organization, 
which was adopted." 

In 1776, before the Dorset Convention of July 24tli of that 
year had been held, General Gates recommended the nomina- 
tion of military officers to the Committee of the Hampshire 
Grants, " of which," Lyon declared in his Congressional Nar- 
rative, " I was a member." He was probably appointed by 
the Manchester Convention, or by one of the Dorset conven- 
tions just named. Should the full lists of members ever be 
found, the name of Lyon probably will be discovered among 
them. 

He was a delegate to the Dorset Convention of July 24, 
1776, from North Wallingford^ together with Abraham Jack- 
son. The well authenticated James H. Phelps's copy of the 
proceedings and list of members contains Lyon's name,** which 
is also subscribed to the declaration of principles put forth by 
the Convention.'' Some Vermont writers say he was a mem- 
ber of the Windsor Convention of July 2, 1777, as well as of 
the celebrated Council of Safety which was chosen by that 
Convention.*^ Mr. Dana, already referred to, expressed the 
opinion that he was not a member of this Council, because he 
did not mention it in his Congressional Narrative. There is 
apparent argumentative force in this opinion. Lyon was fond 
of referring to the honorable positions he occupied in Vermont, 
but the author has found no distinct claim by him in his letters 
or speeches, many of which he has examined, though his letter 

fl Lyon's letter to Mason, January 16, 1817. 
6 Vermont Historical Society, I, p. 16. 
c Ibid, p. 23. 

d Rev. Pliny White, E. G. Walton, D. P. Thompson and others held 
this opinion. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS l6l 

to Senator Mason might be construed to inchide such a claim, 
of having been a member of the Old Council of Safety of 
1777. The failure of Colonel Lyon to mention that office 
in 1798, when suddenly called upon to defend himself from 
attack, is by no means conclusive either that he had or had 
not been a member of this Council. Tliere were several sta- 
tions of honor which he omitted to mention on that occasion, 
but which there is no doubt he had filled. Mr. Dana may have 
thought it probable that so great a distinction as the office 
conferred was not likely to be forgotten by Colonel Lyon, 
whose memory was generally tenacious of the important trans- 
actions in which he had taken part. But he was one of the 
eighty-five Americans who struck the first glorious and ag- 
gressive blow of the war, the capture of Ticonderoga, the fame 
of which immeasurably surpasses that of any other event, the 
battle of Bennington alone excepted, which occurred in Ver- 
mont during the whole Revolution. He was also founder of 
the flourishing town of Fair Haven, where he established ex- 
tensive mills, factories and iron works, and long was known 
as the father of the town, a benefactor of the poor and one of 
the most popular and respected citizens of Vermont. Yet 
none of these matters was mentioned by Colonel Lyon in his 
" Congressional Narrative." The force of Mr. Dana's opinion 
is of course only negative and argumentative. As such it must 
receive every consideration it deserves in this biography, the 
author of which has no other purpose than to state the truth. 
The failure to find reference to the Old Council of Safety in 
such of Colonel Lyon's literary remains, except the Mason letter 
of 1817, as have come into the present writer's hands, although 
negative and inferential, adds to the plausibility of the opinion 



1 62 MATTHEW LYON 

expressed by Mr. Dana. In reality, however, I think Mr. 
Dana is mistaken. On the other side, there is much to be said 
favorable to the opposite opinion expressed by well known his- 
torical writers in Vermont, that Colonel Lyon was a member of 
the Council in question. Had the author not been aware of this 
he would have omitted the copious extracts from Mr. Thomp- 
son's address before the Vermont Historical Society, in which 
Lyon's membership and prominence in the Council are dis- 
cussed as undoubted facts. In the sketch of Thomas Chitten- 
den by David Read, the name of Matthew Lyon is also given 
as a member of this Council.'^ In the " Report of a British 
Agent," published among the Haldimand Papers, this occurs : 
" Captain Lyon (one of the Council) told * * * that 
Governor Chittenden would settle with Britain if the present 
leading men in Vermont were allowed to continue such under 
Britain."^ Commenting on this, Walton says, "Lyon was 
never a member of any Council, unless it was the Council of 
Safety, which closed more than two years previous to these re- 
ports."^ " Colonel Allen's report to the Council," says another 
of Haldimand's agents, " was kept so profound a secret that no 
man of the King's friends, nor of the rebels of high or low de- 
gree could come to the knowledge of a syllable of it from the 
Council, except a few words dropped from Captain Lyon, to 
the following purport, viz : ' Vermont would never make up 
the Tories' losses, and if they could not settle with General 
Haldimand pretty much on their own terms, they would baffle 
him with flags and prolong the time till they were better able 



a Vermont Historical Magazine, I, 911. 
*> Vermont Historical Society, II, 137. 
* Governor and Council, I, 72. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I63 

to oppose him.' "* The last quotation, found in the " Report 
of a British Agent," is also taken from the Haldimand 
Papers, and implies that L. was a member of the Council. 
Mr. Walton sums up the testimony in favor of Lyon's mem- 
bership in the following words: " Assuming, as it is certainly 
safe to do, that Lyon was qualified for the place, his close rela- 
tions with Chittenden and the Aliens, * * * are the 
strong points in favor of the probability that he rather than 
any other man suggested by Mr. White, or any other man who 
can be suggested, was the twelfth member of the Council of 
Safety."^ The italics in the last words are those of Mr. Wal- 
ton. 

Lyon says, in his letters and speeches, that he was adjutant 
of his regiment the first year of the war. He was lieutenant in 
the Continental line when ordered to Jericho by Gates in 1776, 
and paymaster with the rank of captain in Col, Seth Warner's 
regiment in 1777. General Schuyler's letter to Colonel War- 
ner, in which Lyon's appointment to the last position was an- 
nounced, has been already quoted. A grandson of Colonel 
Lyon, Mr. T. A. Lyon, of Louisville, Kentucky, among other 
valuable papers which he has furnished to the author, sent the 
original commission of his grandfather as second lieutenant in 
the Continental line in 1776. Some autograph hunter has cut 
out the general's signature (that of Horatio Gates most prob- 
ably), but the rest of the commission is intact, and is here given 
in full as an interesting and perhaps never before published 
Revolutionary document. It is written in a bold, fine hand, 
and bears the wax seal of the general whose name has been 
cut out. 

o Vermont Historical Society, II, 137. 
ft Governor and Council, I, 72-3. 



164 MATTHEW LYON 

" By Virtue of the Power & Authority Given by Major General 
Schuyler. 
"To Matthew Lyon, Gentleman: 

" Reposing especial trust & Confidence in your Patriotism, Valoui;, 
Conduct & Fidelity, I do by these presents constitute & Appoint you 
to be a Second Lieutenant in the Army of the United States rais'd 
for the defence of American Liberty, & for repelling every hostile 
Invasion thereof. You are therefore carefully & diligently to dis- 
charge the duty of a Second Lieutenant by doing & performmg all 
manner of things thereunto belonging. And I do strictly charge & 
require all officers & soldiers under your command to be obedient 
to your Orders as a Second Lieutenant & you are to observe & 
follow such Orders & directions from time to time as you shall 
receive from the present or a future Convention of the United States 
of America or Committee thereof, for that purpose appointed, or 
Commander in chief for the time being of the Army of the United 
States, or any other your Superior Officer, according to the rules 
& discipline of War; in pursuance of the trust repos'd in you this 
Commission to Continue in force untill revok'd by me, the present, 
or a future Convention of the United States. 

" dated at Ticonderoga this 19th day of July 1776. 

" (Signature cut out.) [Heavy wax seal.l 
" By his Honour's 
" Command. 

" WM. CLASSON, Secrry." 

Rev. Pliny H. White, in his 1858 address before the Ver- 
mont Historical Society, states that Lyon was first heard of in 
the Hampshire Grants as a laborer employed by Thomas Chit- 
tenden at Arlington. This is obviously an error. Chittenden 
first took up his residence at Arlington in 1777," nearly four 
years after Lyon had bought land and settled in Wallingford.* 

o " Chittenden, after the surrender of Burgoyne, purchased a farm in 
Arlington, on which he resided until 1787." — Daniel Chipman's Life 
of Governor Chittenden, p. 17. 

^A letter to the author from Joel C. Baker, Esq., of Rutland, and 
Rev. Mr. Saunderson's Sketch of Wallingford at a former page. Also 
Lyon's Congressional Narrative, 1798. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 165 

jMr, White cites no proof or record evidence for his statement, 
and the author, after diHgent search, has found nothing what- 
ever to support it, but everything to contradict it. The orator 
in this instance no doubt trusted to rumor, which for a season 
among the FederaHsts was very busy with its thousand 
tongues disseminating idle stories concerning Matthew Lyon. 
The address, while marked by much of antiquarian research 
into a subject then almost forgotten, and which Mr, White 
contributed not a little to rescue from oblivion, has this defect, 
perhaps inseparable from all hasty treatment : Portions of the 
narrative are taken at second hand and from neighborhood 
gossip, as for example, where he says Lyon's second wife "bore 
him four children," whereas the number was eight;" where he 
says, " Lyon's first appearance in public life was in the sum- 
mer of 1776 * * * at Jericho," whereas he was one of 
Ethan Allen's storming party at Ticonderoga in 1775, and ad- 
jutant to Seth Warner's regiment also in 1775;* where he says, 
in speaking of Lyon's conviction and fine under the Sedition 
Law, that " it was not till 1833, several years after his death, 
that the fine and costs were refunded to his heirs," whereas the 
act of Congress referred to bears date July 4, 1840;^ and 
finally, not to dwell on the subject longer, where he says Lyon 
" was elected the first delegate to Congress " from the Terri- 
tory of Arkansas, whereas he was elected the second delegate, 
having been defeated by another candidate at the first elec- 
tion.*^ 



o Lyon's family record and his daughter's (Mrs. Roe's) letters to au- 
thor. 

6 Lyon's letter to Senator Mason and his 1798 Narrative. 

'^ Congressional Globe for 1S40. 

<* Register of Congressional Debates, 1820, 



l66 MATTHEW LYON 

Thomas Chittenden, Matthew Lyon and Jonathan Spafford 
emigrated from Litchfield county, Connecticut, in 1774, and it 
is possible, as they took household and other effects with them 
to the Hampshire Grants, that Lyon, always fertile in resources 
and a natural organizer, may have been employed by Chitten- 
den to transport the effects of the party to the new country 
from historic old Litchfield. Everywhere that the records dis- 
close Chittenden and Lyon in contact, they appear as equals 
and friends. They were members of the Dorset Convention 
of July 24, 1776. They were leading members of the Old 
Council of Safety of 1777. They appeared as associates at 
Arlington, in the latter part of 1777, to crush out Toryism then 
rampant at that place. In the course of a few years Lyon mar- 
ried the daughter of Chittenden and became a favorite son-in- 
law of the famous Governor. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 167 



CHAPTER IV. 

LOST SIBYL LEAVES OF CHITTENDEN — THE HALDIMAND IN- 
TRIGUE — IRA Allen's confession — collision at west- 
minster BETWEEN CHIPMAN AND LYON — COUNCIL OF CEN- 
SORS CAUSE LYOn's IMPEACHMENT — LYON VINDICATED — 
DEATH OF HIS WIFE — HIS REMARRIAGE TO GOVERNOR CHIT- 
TENDEN'S DAUGHTER — HE FOUNDS FAIR HAVEN — DISTIN- 
GUISHED CAREER IN VERMONT. 

"TOURING the period of the residence of Thomas Chittenden 
and Matthew Lyon at Arhngton the cause of Vermont, 
like a pendulum betwixt despair and hope, now trembled on 
the verge of ruin, and again was carried to the opposite ex- 
treme of anticipated triumph, with State sovereignty the watch- 
word in every fight and against every enemy. 

"Ho! all to the borders, Vermonters come down, 
With your breeches of deer-skin and jackets of brown, 
With your red woolen caps and your moccasins, come 
To the gathering summons of trumpet and drum. 

****♦» 

Leave the harvest to rot on the field where it grows, ^ 

And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes; 

:^ 4: * * * * 

Our vow is recorded, our banner unfurled 

In the name of Vermont, we defy all the world."* 

It was a season of great historical action upon which the 
destinies not only of Vermont but of America hinged. France 
and England, the centur}^ fighters, had exchanged places in 

« " Song of the Vermonters," by John G. Whittier. 



l68 MATTHEW LYON 

their relations to America. Years before, when English do- 
minion on this continent seemed to be more firmly established 
than ever through the French surrender of Canada to England, 
the astute Count de Vergennes predicted that it would prove a 
fatal triumph to Great Britain. " I am persuaded," said he, 
" England will ere long repent of having removed the only 
check that could keep her Colonies in awe. They stand no 
longer in need of her protection ; she will call on them to con- 
tribute toward supporting the burdens they have helped to 
bring on her, and they will answer by striking off all depend- 
ence."« 

The evolutions of the mighty struggle, which began in the 
forests of Pennsylvania and encircled the world in its progress, 
nowhere have been crayoned out more strikingly than by the 
great English novelist Thackeray. The inspiration of the 
name of Washington has not only lent to genius its noblest 
theme, but it has enriched the English language with some of 
its finest literature. But where in a single stroke is the epic 
depicted so graphically, with the Heaven-sent hero carved out 
before the naked eye with the distinctness of the marble of 
Canova, as in this gem from the pages of " The Virginians? " 

" Up to this time (1753) no actual blow of war had been 
struck. The troops representing the hostile nations were in 
presence — the guns were loaded, but no one as yet had cried 
' Fire ! ' It was strange that in a savage forest of Pennsylvania 
a young Virginian officer should fire a shot and waken up a 
war which was to last for sixty years, which was to cover his 
own country and pass into Europe, to cost France her Ameri- 

a Bancroft's History of the United States, III, 305. Irving's Life of 
Washington, I, 281. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I69 

can Colonies, to sever ours from us, and create the great 
Western Republic; to rage over the Old World when extin- 
guished in the New; and, of all the myriads engaged in the 
vast contest, to leave the prize of the greatest fame with him 
who struck the first blow! "* 

Vermont played a not insignificant part in the American 
Revolution, and if the papers of Governor Chittenden had been 
preserved, instead of having been sold, as Professor Butler 
says, " to a peddler with paper rags,"'* what an invaluable treas- 
ury of facts might have been gathered from his correspondence. 
Those letters and documents, stufifed in the vandal ragbag of a 
peddler, no doubt teamed with New England and New York 
history. Among his correspondents were Stark, the hero of 
New Hampshire; Hancock, whose signature suggests the mas- 
sive statesman ; Sam. Adams, the Hotspur of his prolific family ; 
John Adams, with his "antiquated British surliness;"^ the plas- 
tic Hamilton and sturdy George Clinton, old Oliver Wolcott, 
of Litchfield, the nursing mother of Vermont; honest Philip 
Schuyler, General Haldimand, the British tempter, and clarumet 
venerahile nomen, George Washington himself. How much at 
that time of trial and doubt must the leaders have found to 
say in those lost sibyl leaves of Chittenden! Each trifle even, 
if I may borrow the quaint figure of speech of Professor But- 
ler, would be " a little window through which we could look 
into the distant past." Had the papers of Chittenden come 
down to us they would constitute in connection with Haldi- 

fl " The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century," by William Make- 
peace Thackeray, chapter VI. 

* " Deficiencies in Our History," an address before the Vermont 
Historical Society, by James Davie Butler, 1846. 

c Carpenter's Life of Jefiferson. 



170 MATTHEW LYON 

mand's papers a perfect chapter of Revolutionary history, and 
make much clearer than it is now ever likely to be our knowl- 
edge of the secret intrigue between the British and Ver- 
monters. As it is, the chapter lacks completeness, important 
leaves have been torn out in the most interesting parts, and 
that scapegoat, the peddler, is left to take the blame. The 
origin of the Chipman-Lyon feud lies buried in this lost chapter 
of Vermont history. 

The war swept southward after the victory of Saratoga, and 
New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts had more leis- 
ure in which to harass the Green Mountain Boys, and renew 
attempts to dismember their territory and divide it up among 
themselves. Governor Chittenden met the crisis undaunted, 
and Ira Allen and Matthew Lyon rendered efficient aid in de- 
fense of the liberty and separate existence of Vermont. Plot 
and counterplot succeeded each other rapidly; first, New 
Hampshire towns, and next New York towns sought to form 
a union with Vermont, and the New Hampshire towns tried to 
disintegrate the Grants under the specious plea of erecting a 
new State along Connecticut river on either side of that stream. 
New Hampshire and New York appealed to Congress, and 
that body, while wisely striving to remain neutral, was com- 
pelled by the importunities of Governor Clinton and President 
Weare to interfere in the dispute and assume an attitude of 
unfriendliness to Vermont. Ira Allen and Stephen R. Brad- 
ley, the Vermont agents, were admitted to the Congressional 
deliberations, but without a voice in the controversy, and per- 
ceiving an adverse disposition on the part of Congress, they 
promptly withdrew and remonstrated against the right of that 
body to sit as a court of judicature and determine the fate of 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I/I 

Vermont by virtue of authority given only by the other parties. 
The Green Mountain Boys now renewed the scheme of union, 
known as the East and West unions with New Hampshire 
and New York towns, and not satisfied with this bold step, 
which was partially carried out, the Vermont leaders entered 
upon another still more desperate and questionable movement — 
nothing less than secret negotiations with the enemy, the pro- 
fessed purpose of which was a return to their allegiance to the 
British Crown. This step was only taken after repeated over- 
tures had been made by British emissaries to bring it about. 
Two letters to Ethan Allen from an adroit and scheming New 
York Tory of much prominence, Beverley Robinson, had been 
forwarded to Congress with the twofold object of proving the 
desire of Vermont to be received into the Confederacy or, fail- 
ing that, and rather than submit to New York, of intimating 
the intention of once more becoming a British province. Mat- 
thew Lyon, as Deputy Secretary or Secretary of the Council, 
certified to the correctness of the copies of these letters, the 
originals of which were kept in Vermont. Congress paid no 
attention to the letters, and negotiations with the British, 
commonly called the Haldimand Intrigue, were opened by 
Governor Chittenden. This intrigue has provoked furious 
abuse from a multitude of hostile writers, and led to more wide- 
spread censure of Vermont than any other transaction in the 
history of the State. But repulsed by Congress, and threatened 
with destruction by their neighbors, the then leaders of the 
independent republic which had been created by the wisdom of 
Chittenden and the valor of the Aliens, Warner, Lyon and their 
fellows, felt themselves to be driven to the dire necessity of in- 



172 MATTHEW LYON 

triguing with the common enemy of America in order to pre- 
vent the annihilation of Vermont. Exigent casuistry! 

Viewed as a pure question of international law or of the law 
of nations, had Vermont the right to treat separately with Great 
Britain during the Revolutionary struggle? Puflfendorf and 
Vattel lay down the law that a de facto State, having declared 
its independence and being able to maintain it, may claim 
recognition, and if the claim is acknowledged by other nations 
or made good by military force, it may exercise the acts of a 
nation, make treaties, declare war, conclude peace, and wield 
the sovereignty of a separate nationality. In 1777 the people 
of Vermont having already thrown off allegiance to Great 
Britain, established a separate government, adopted a constitu- 
tion and placed their affairs in the hands of a Council of Safety, 
they seem to have fulfilled those requirements defined by the 
publicists as essential to constitute a de facto State. The right 
to conclude peace with the public enemy cannot be denied to 
such a government, and therefore the charge of treason to the 
United States, of which Vermont was not a part, is inapplicable 
to the Green Mountain Boys or to their leaders, conceding 
even that peace with Great Britain at the risk of war with the 
United States was the object of their negotiations with the 
British General Haldimand. But as a moral and patriotic 
question, aside from the constitutional and international aspect 
of the case, nothing could be more un-American and abhorrent 
than actual union between Great Britain and Vermont against 
the United States in the Revolutionary war. The negotiations 
which took place were carried on by stealth and wrapped in 
impenetrable mystery, an acknowledgment that those who en- 
gaged in them on the part of the Green Mountain Boys were 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 1 73 

ashamed of the business. When Sergeant Tupper, a Green 
Mountain Boy, was killed by St. Leger's men and some of 
Tupper's militiamen were captured, the secret negotiations 
were nearly exposed by the British general. He buried the 
American with distinguished military honors, and returned his 
clothing and personal eflfects to the Vermonters, with a letter 
of apology for the killing of the sergeant by his troops, igno- 
rant of the secret armistice between the British and Green 
Mountain Boys. 

The contents of that letter became known. Colonel Rey- 
nolds, called by some chroniclers Major Runnells, questioned 
Ira Allen sharply as to the meaning of such a transaction, and 
got a fiery and unsatisfactory answer. Nathaniel Chipman 
was called upon to doctor the letter, and produced a new or 
bogus one, which was read to the excited people as the real 
dispatch from St. Leger, and the matter was hushed up, but 
only after the greatest difficulty. The wrath of the Vermonters 
was aroused, and its exhibition was infinitely creditable to them 
as American patriots, and went very far to establish the truth 
of Governor Chittenden's subsequent admission that but very 
few persons, only eight men, were aware of the secret negotia- 
tions with the enemy. General Stark, then at Saratoga, wrote 
to Governor Chittenden, and said : " Accountable as I am to 
superiors and inexcusable as I should be if I neglected to ad- 
vise them of any circumstances which carry the aspect of in- 
iquity, I wish to receive the most authentic information re- 
specting the sergeant of the Vermont militia who was slain 
and his party captured by the enemy. I expect your Excel- 
lency will enable me to furnish a minute detail of it to Congress 
by affording me a perusal of the original letter which the 



174 MATTHEW LYON 

British commanding officer is said to have written to you on 
the occasion. This will be returned to you by a safe hand and 
a copy transmitted to Congress."" Governor Chittenden put 
off General Stark with explanations. 

But Vermont was truly the child of the Revolution, the off- 
spring of war, a State evolved from the storm of battle. Did 
its people mean to join the British and desert the American 
cause? Oh, no! The blood-stained field of Hubbardton, where 
the Green Mountain Boys fell stubbornly fighting in the patriot 
cause, says no ; their blood poured out like water on the glo- 
rious field of Bennington forbids the dishonoring thought. 
" Greater love than this no man hath," says the inspired Book, 
" that a man lay down his life for his friends." Traitors are 
not made of such stuff as the heroes who stormed the heights 
of Ticonderoga, followed Montgomery into Canada, marched 
to the rescue of Wooster and Sullivan, and helped to win the 
victory at Saratoga. The offense of that strange intrigue was 
in its ignoble possibilities, and not in its real motives, which 
seem only to have been a cunning dalliance, a trick of war, a 
pardonable deception practiced on the British. In a letter to 
Governor Chittenden, General Washington gauged the quality 
of the transaction correctly: "They" (the British), said he, 
" have been worsted in the use of their own weapon — decep- 
tion."^ 

The people of Vermont have nothing to fear from the most 
rigid inquiry into the Haldimand intrigue. Even Col. Wil- 
liam L. Stone, while arraigning the leaders with severity, 
frankly admits that the people were not in the plot." 

o Collections Vermont Historical Society, II, 197. 
* Vermont Historical Society Papers, II, p. 229. 
c Life of Brant, U, 203-4. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 1/5 

We have seen how the inhabitants of the Grants were swept 
from their homes and fled into Connecticut and Massachusetts 
on the irruption of Burgoyne into Vermont during the summer 
of 1777. Matthew Lyon's wife and children, driven from their 
farm in WalHngford, fled southward with the rest to seek 
refuge with their friends out of the track of the invader, prob- 
ably in Litchfield county, Connecticut. On Lyon's resignation 
from the Continental army and return to Vermont in the winter 
of 1777 or spring of 1778, he conducted his family home again 
to the Grants, and made his abode in the Tory stronghold of 
Arlington. He continued to reside in this place for the next 
five years, held many positions of trust and distinction in the 
community, and on the election of Thomas Chittenden Gov- 
ernor of the State, Lyon was chosen by the people of Arlington 
to succeed that distinguished man in the Legislature, taking 
his seat in that body at the beginning of 1779. 

The fierce struggle for existence which Vermont was making 
at this time against New York and New Hampshire and to a 
less extent against Massachusetts, rendered the military arm 
of the young mountain republic its chief reliance, not only 
against the British and Tories, but against its sister States. 
Lyon was remarkably active in these emergencies, and rose by 
regular regimental gradation in a regiment of Green Moun- 
tain Boys from the rank of captain^ in 1778, to that of colonel 
at the opening of the year 1782. He was, with the two Aliens, 
the mainstay of Governor Chittenden, during these trying for- 
mative days, now aiding in the work of quelling Tories, fight- 
ing Yorkers and guarding the frontier from red-coats and In- 
dians, and again devising measures to secure, if possible, the 



176 MATTHEW LYON 

admission of Vermont into the Confederation as the fourteenth 
sovereign confederate of the United States. 

Chittenden placed the number of persons in the Haldimand 
secret at eight — Thomas Chittenden, Moses Robinson. Samuel 
Safiford, Ethan Allen, Ira Allen, Timothy Brownson, John Fas- 
sett and Joseph Fay." But that number had to be increased 
as circumstances required.** Nathaniel Chipman was taken 
into the intrigue, and to him was assigned the questionable task 
of reconstructing the St. Leger-Tupper letter.*' He was after- 
wards the founder of the Federal party in Vermont, the Fed- 
eralists being disposed later on to censure Governor Chitten- 
den and Matthew Lyon, the founders of the Democratic party 
in the State, then called the Old Guard, for their part in the 
intrigue, which, like the shirt of Nessus, sticks forever to all 
who had lot or parcel in the business. Matthew Lyon cannot 
escape some small degree of the censure attached to Judge 
Chipman. Neither of them was taken into the secret at first. 
Ira Allen, the Machiavelli of his time, had the conspirator's 
talent for secrecy, and thought one was better than two, and 
eight were enough for every contingency. Chittenden was less 
subtle, but far wiser, and he, probably against Ira Allen's 
wishes, soon added Chipman, Lyon, Enos and one or two 
others to the original number of intriguers who were playing 
double with the British and Americans. Lyon's participation 
in the ruse must be regarded as the least defensible act of his 
whole public career. He was improperly blamed and unjustly 
punished for the retreat from Jericho, but even had he been 



a Williams's History of Vermont, II, 214. 
6 Vermont Historical Collection, I, 421. 
clbid, II, 193. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I77 

guilty of disobedience of orders with which he was then 
charged by Gates, that offense would have been immeasurably 
small compared with any, even the slightest complicity in the 
plot fomented by Haldimand and Ira Allen, the professed 
object of which was submission to England in the midst of a 
war Vermont had plunged into with the States of which 
she claimed to be a sister, for weal or woe, for " liberty or 
death," I am aware that Jared Sparks described the intrigue 
by the rose-colored remark that it was one of '" the allowable 
stratagems of war." But Ira Allen, over a quarter of a cen- 
tury after the Revolutionary war had ended, described it more 
bluntly, and the final verdict of history will be that the prime 
mover of the intrigue knew more about his own ultimate de- 
sign than the amiable Jared Sparks. " If the events of war 
had terminated in favor of Great Britain," said Ira Allen to 
Samuel Hitchcock, of Burlington, in a letter dated October 11, 
1809, *' Vermont would have been a favorite Colony under the 
Crown ; if in favor of the United States, they were prepared for 
a sister State in the Federal Union, which they obtained."*^ 
This, he asserted in the same cold-blooded confession, gained 
for Vermont "the securest situation of any of the people in the 
United States." Such, then, was the scheme of Ira Allen, but 
Governor Chittenden, Nathaniel Chipman and Matthew Lyon 
never would have entered into any plot to make Vermont in 
reality a " Colony under the Crown." The glory or the shame 
of this self-confessed scheme belongs exclusively to Ira Allen. 
The good people of Vermont, to their credit be it said, have 
ever been ashamed of the Haldimand intrigue. But that 

o Letters of Ira Allen, pp. 9-10, in the Vermont State Library. Also 
Governor and Council, I, 116. 



178 MATTHEW LYON 

shame has often to be spelled out between the lines of many of 
the early State records which, without such a key to explain 
them, would be wholly incomprehensible. Thus Slade in his 
" State Papers," and the Commissioners of Confiscation and 
Sequestration in their published transactions, have suppressed 
the names of Tories subjected to confiscation. The secret 
records of the Court of Confiscation have been sedulously 
guarded from publication. " In all our histories," says Profes- 
sor James Davie Butler, " there is a lack of characteristic mi- 
nutiae. We ask for face to face details, we receive far off 
generalities."" How many Tories were stripped of their hold- 
ings, how many by Haldimand's orderwere restored to their pos- 
sessions, how many received compensation in other forms as the 
result of the negotiations with the British, are among the buried 
secrets of the Old Council of Safety which will never be known. 
Matthew Lyon, I repeat, with his usual impetuosity, once 
blurted out to one of Haldimand's agents, " Vermont would 
never make up the Tories' losses, and if they could not settle 
with General Haldimand pretty much on their own terms, they 
would bafBe him with flags and prolong the time till they were 
better able to oppose him."^ To another spy of Haldimand 
it appears Lyon held different language. " Captain Lyon (one 
of the Council) told * * * that Governor Chittenden would 
settle with Britain," says the spy, " if the present leading men 
in Vermont were allowed to continue such under Britain, their 
old and new Grants confirmed, the East and West new terri- 
tories confirmed, all their laws and acts confirmed and nothing 



o Address before the Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, 1846. 
ft Collections Vermont Historical Society; Haldimand Papers, II, 
137- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS \ I79 

revoked; that the Tories' farms must (he supposed) be given 
up to them; but Vermont would not make good any other 
damage to them."'' 

These ghmpses afford a hint of the cause why the records 
of the old Court of Confiscation were so jealously guarded, 
and why Matthew Lyon was impeached in 1785. This im- 
peachment took place while Lyon was absent; it was pressed 
to conviction and fine by Nathaniel Chipman and others, 
but it fell through entirely when Lyon made request for a 
new trial. He was able to show that his refusal to surrender 
the tell-tale records, even if they were not then destroyed, which 
is more probable, was intended to screen others and not himself, 
that their exposure would produce endless litigation, and act 
hke a bombshell not only on land titles but on reputations 
and characters. As Chipman was in the Haldimand intrigue, he 
must have taken the hint, for the prosecution was abandoned 
suddenly and completely. But it would have been more just 
to Colonel Lyon, who was evidently innocent of any personal 
misconduct in the premises, to have reversed the sentence, re- 
mitted the fine, and placed on record the evidence of his ac- 
quittal of the charge made against him by the Council of 
Censors. In effect this was done, the conviction was treated 
as a nullity, the fine was not enforced, and the State, not Lyon, 
paid the costs of the prosecution ; but the record was practically 
suppressed. Chipman and Lyon were political opponents. 
The enemies of the latter for a time circulated false stories con- 
cerning him, and invented one about a wooden sword which 
not only aroused Colonel Lyon's indignation, but led to many 
an encounter with fists on the part of his young son, Chitten- 

a Ibid, II, 136. 



l80 MATTHEW LYON 

den Lyon, with any of his playmates in the neighborhood who 
ventured upon the insulting subject. This silly story was to 
the effect that General Gates, when he cashiered Matthew Lyon 
at Ticonderoga, ordered him to wear a wooden sword and to be 
drummed out of camp to the music of the Rogues March. 
Rev. Mr. Beaman describes Chittenden Lyon as a very fiery 
boy, a chip of the old block, generous, popular and impulsive, 
but woe betide any schoolmate or companion of his who dared 
to say wooden sword in his presence. The story was utterly 
false, and too ridiculous and mean to be long tolerated by Ver- 
monters who knew and liked Matthew Lyon for his courage 
in every fight, for his conspicuous rank among those daring 
men, the Green Mountain Boys, who braved death in many 
desperate battles; and so the malicious lie was soon frowned 
down and run down by the whole community, and no more 
was heard of it in Vermont. In March, 1780, Chipman, who 
seemed always to be jealous of Matthew Lyon, had reflected 
upon him in a report that he made to the Legislature on the 
debts due from persons whose estates had been confiscated by 
the old Council of Safety, all record of which has likewise been 
suppressed. Lyon, who was innocent of any wrong doing and 
well knew Chipman was more deeply implicated in the Haldi- 
mand intrigue than himself, resented the imputations by at- 
tacking Judge Chipman at Westminster, and engaging in a 
sharp tussle with him in the room of Mr. Stephen R. Bradley 
at that place. The old Council of Safety and its Commission- 
ers of Confiscation were clothed with the full sovereign power 
of the people, willingly bestowed upon them in a time of ex- 
treme peril, when the sic volo, sic juhco rule was the only law 
that bound them. If these records would show how many of 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS l8l 

Haldimand's appeals in behalf of the Tories, and demands for 
the restoration of their confiscated property, had been complied 
with by the old Council of Safety, public policy at such a crisis 
and the ever changing current of events no doubt dictated 
silence, and justified the care shown in avoiding unnecessary 
publicity. Details of petty calamities, and cruel sufferings of 
women and children driven from their homes by a righteous 
enforcement of the penalties denounced against Toryism and 
treason, presented a moving spectacle to the heart of magnani- 
mous men; but it was not a spectacle to put on exhibition in 
the gazettes. Governor Chittenden and Matthew Lyon pre- 
ferred to go about doing good by stealth among the distressed 
inhabitants of Arlington and the surrounding country, clothing 
the naked, feeding the hungry, and discharging the other offices 
of charity, rather than to expose to public gaze the miseries 
entailed upon the families of Tories by the hard necessities of 
a time of war and of conflicts with domestic traitors to the 
American cause. " The Governor took upon himself," says 
the historian of the town, Rev. F. A. Wadleigh, " the task of 
visiting from time to time every family, and taking an account 
of the provisions on hand. Under his oversight, and by his 
impartial and disinterested counsel, distribution was so made 
that, although all were pinched, none perished."" Modera- 
tion is creditable where power is unlimited. The pa- 
triots exercised their autocratic powers so rarely and so 
mercifully that only the one or two strictures of the Federalists 
led by Judge Chipman, and they, when brought to the test 
against Lyon, utterly breaking down, ever have been made 
against Thomas Chittenden and his Council. Once besides 
« Vermont Historical Gazetteer, I, 130. 



l82 MATTHEW LYON 

the instance mentioned, Chittenden, who was suspected of hav- 
ing strained a point in Ira Allen's favor in some land title, was 
attacked by the Federalists in the Legislature and that year he 
was defeated for Governor, but an investigation, as in the 
attacks on Lyon, proved his innocence of any wrongdoing, 
and the year after his defeat Thomas Chittenden, the leader of 
the " Old Guard," was again triumphantly elected Governor, a 
position he continued to hold nearly as long as he lived. 

The rencontre between Chipman and Lyon in the room of 
Mr. Bradley at Westminster, Vermont, in the beginning of 
the year 1780, must have caused a deep-seated enmity between 
the two men. Nearly twenty years afterwards Judge Chip- 
man, knowing the feelings of Colonel Lyon upon the subject 
of his having been unjustly cashiered from the army by Gen- 
eral Gates, and that Lyon would resent any slurs upon his con- 
duct in that affair (for Lyon told Chipman as much), neverthe- 
less circulated the old, forgotten wooden sword slander among 
Senators and Congressmen at Philadelphia. Lyon retorted 
by saying: " I could prove that the gentleman from Vermont 
(Chipman), who was called to give testimony against me, has 
with the politeness peculiar to a certain country which I will 
not now name, insulted me and received due chastisement 
from me for it."" 

This was a home-thrust, and Lyon offered to bring forward 
testimony from Vermont to prove that he had chastised Judge 
Chipman in 1780 for an unwarranted affront. The next day, 
February 9, 1798, smarting under this retort, Chipman ad- 
dressed a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Privileges 



"Annals of Congress, 1798, p. 974- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 183 

giving his version of that ancient squabble with Colonel Lyon. 
It was read in the House, and has found a place in the "Annals 
of Congress."" It is a plain attempt to heap ridicule on a man 
he did not Hke. Judge Chipman taxes credulity largely in ask- 
ing our acceptance of the story that he, quite a small man, 
even with the aid of Mr. Bradley, was able to lay a big two- 
himdred pound athlete like Lyon on his back— not only that, 
but Lyon, he asserts, was in a towering rage, and yet remained 
passive and unresisting in the hands of the little Judge, while 
the latter, assisted by Mr. Bradley, lifted the powerful Colonel 
into the air, carried him across the room and laid him on his 
back in the opposite corner. The whole story smacks of Mun- 
chausen. It will be observed that Lyon claimed to have chas- 
tised his adversary,, and offered to prove it. Chipman, him- 
self telling the story, performed his herculean task of flooring 
Lyon, and returned to his seat to enjoy the joke. Balderdash! 
The following is Judge Chipman's letter: 

" Philadelphia, February 9th, 1798. 
" Sir: I feel it my duty, in this public manner, to vindicate myself 
against an unwarranted attack on my eharacter by Mr. Lyon yester- 
day in the House of Representatives. I learn that he there asserted 
that he had once chastised me publicly for an affront which I had 
given him. This assertion of Mr. Lyon is without foundation; it is 
false. Nor can I conjecture to what circumstance Mr. Lyon could 
have alluded, unless it might be a ludicrous transaction which took 
place at Westminster, in the State of Vermont, in the beginning of 
the year 1780, the circumstances of which I beg leave to relate: The 
Legislature of Vermont were in session at that place; Mr. Lyon at- 
tended as a member; I attended on business. The House of Repre- 
sentatives requested me, though not a member, to examine and report 
my opinion concerning certain debts due from persons whose es- 
tates had been confiscated. I had made a report accordingly, at 
some part of which Mr. Lyon took offence. One morning Mr. Lyon 

olbid, pp. 999-1000. 



l84 MATTHEW LYON 

called at Mr. Bradley's room, in which I was then doing business. 
No person was in the room but Mr. Bradley, Mr. Lyon and myself. 
Mr. Bradley and I sat writing at opposite sides of the table; Mr. 
Lyon took a seat by the table at the side of Mr. Bradley, and entered 
into a conversation upon the subject of the report above mentioned. 
He soon discovered himself to be somewhat irritated, and in a very 
rude and pointed manner declared that no man who had a spark 
of honesty could have reported as I had done. Attacked in this rude 
manner, I retorted in a passion that he was an ignorant Irish puppy. 

" Mr. Lyon rose in a violent passion, grasped at my hair that was 
turned back with a comb, which he broke in the grasp. I was at 
that moment mending a pen; I instantly rose, intending to revenge 
the insult with the knife in my hand; but Mr. Bradley had seized Mr. 
Lyon from behind, round the arms, and drew him back a little; upon 
which Mr. Lyon, bearing himself in Mr. Bradley's arms, threw his 
feet upon the table to kick across. The awkward appearance of Mr. 
Lyon at this moment and the grimaces of his countenance provoked 
me to laugh. I dropt the penknife, seized Mr. Lyon's feet, and in 
this manner, with the help of Mr. Bradley, who still kept his hold, 
carried him across the room and laid him on his back in a corner. 
Mr. Bradley and I returned to our seats, laughing very merrily at 
the scene. In the meantime Mr. Lyon rose from his corner, stood 
a short time in apparent agitation, and without uttering a word. At 
length he turned upon his heel with these expressions: ' Damn it. 
I will not be mad ' — forced a laugh, and left the room. Nothing ever 
afterwards passed between Mr. Lyon and myself upon this subject. 
I therefore repeat that Mr. Lyon's assertion is wholly without founda- 
tion. 

" I ask pardon for the trouble I have given the House upon this 
business 

" And am, with respect, etc., 

"NATHANIEL CHIPMAN."» 

The impeachment of Matthew Lyon by the Legislature of 
Vermont on the recommendation of the Council of Censors, 
and his trial and conviction by the Governor and Council, to- 
gether with his appearance before the latter body after its de- 
cision was rendered against him, when the whole proceedings 



* Annals of Congress, 1798, pp. 999-1000. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 185 

were summarily squelched, the State itself and not Lyon pay- 
ing the costs of prosecution, have been digested and will now 
be given in historical sequence for the first time. This ac- 
count is scattered through long and tedious proceedings on 
other subjects, and is practically buried away among the musty 
memorials and worm-eaten lumber of the State archives. The 
author has been at no little pains to dig -out this record, but as 
it has never before seen the light in a collected and intelligible 
shape its historical value in vindicating Lyon from unfounded 
aspersions justifies the compilation. It may be added that 
Lyon's old enemy, Nathaniel Chipman, was one of the mana- 
gers of the impeachment on the part of the Assembly. Hinc 
illae lachryniae. 

" Council of Censors. The first Council met at Norwich in 
June, 1785; at Windsor in September following, and 
at Bennington in February, 1786, and revised the en- 
tire constitution. * * * The Council also instituted the 
impeachment of Matthew Lyon by a resolution requesting the 
Assembly to impeach him. This last fact is stated in Slade's 
record in a note at p. 530."** " October 24 Colonel Barrett was 
again convicted, suspended for six months and required to pay 
the costs of prosecution — £11 19s. At the same session Mat- 
thew Lyon was impeached for refusing to deliver the records 
of the Court of Confiscation to the Council of Censors. Mr. 
Lyon was convicted and ordered to deliver the record. He 
was also sentenced to a reprimand and to a fine of £500 on his 
neglect to appear. He appeared, the sentence was read, and 
then, on Mr. Lyon's request, a new trial was granted. The 



o Vermont Historical Society, II, 491-2. 



l86 MATTHEW LYON 

case seems not to have been tried again."" This was a strange 
way to smother such a matter. Either Lyon was guilty or not. 
That his " request " was supported by such reasons as to con- 
vince the Court that the Council of Censors had burned their 
fingers by intermeddling with the records of the old Court of 
Confiscation, wherein the plotters with Sir Frederick Haldi- 
mand may have kept records which might lay bare the se- 
crets of that intrigue, becomes strongly apparent by the incon- 
sequential backdown of the impeachers after Lyon appeared 
and made answer or request for a new trial. Searching fur- 
ther for details which might throw light on this persecution 
rather than prosecution, the present writer has unearthed the 
following particulars: 

" M. Lyon's impeachment. Record of the Governor and 
Council at the session with the General Assembly at Wind- 
sor." 

" Saturday, October 15, 1785. * * * A bill was received 
from the Council of Censors impeaching Col. Matthew Lyon 
' for refusing to deliver to ye order of this Board (viz.) The 
Council of Censors the Records of Confiscation, and was 
read.' "» 

" Monday, October 17, 1785. * * On motion ordered 
that to-morrow morning 10 o'clock be assigned for the trial 
of Colonel Matthew Lyon on the impeachment ordered by the 
Council of Censors; and that a copy of this order be trans- 
mitted to the General Assembly (now sitting) by the Secretary, 
that they have opportunity to give necessary order to the 
prosecution of said cause." 

^Vermont Historical Society, II, 428; MS. Assembly Journal, VoL 
II, 498-9. 
»Gov. and C, III, 81. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 187 

" Tuesday, October i8, 1785. According to yesterday's 
order the Council resolved themselves into a Court for the 
trial of impeachments, his Honor, the deputy-governor " (Paul 
Spooner)," " in the chair. The trial of Matthew Lyon, Esqr., 
came on, it being on an impeachment brought against him by 
the General Assembly for * knowingly, wilfully and corruptly 
refusing to deliver the Records of the late Court of Confisca- 
tion to the order of the Council of Censors.' The said Mat- 
thew Lyon being called to plead to said impeachment, plead 
not guilty, and put himself on the Court for Tryal. Evidences 
were educed for and against the prisoner and after the argu- 
ments made use of therefrom, and from the nature of the 
cause, the decision was submitted to the Court. Adjourned," 

" Wednesday, 19th October, 1785. Court met according to 
adjournment and resumed the consideration of said cause for 
judgment, and after deliberation thereon, came to the follow- 
ing determination, vizt: This Court consider and adjudge that 
the said Matthew Lyon is guilty of the crime alleged against 
him in the impeachment. Therefore order that he deliver the 
Records of the late Court of Confiscation to the Honorable 
the Council of Censors, taking their Rect. And receive a 
reprimand from the president of this Court; And on his neglect 
or refusal immediately to attend to and comply with and per- 
form the same that he pay a fine of five hundred pounds £ 
money to the Treasurer of this State, and that he also pay cost 
of prosecution. Adjourned to 2 ock p. m. Met according 
to adjournment. The said Matthew Lyon, Esqr., appeared in 

o The Chipman party evidently took advantage of the absence of 
Governor Chittenden, Lyon's father-in-law, from the chair. 



l88 MATTHEW LYON 

Court when the preceding sentence of the Court was read, 
whereupon the said Matthew Lyon, Esqr. moved the Court 
for a new trial, alleging as the reason for his request that his 
cause had not been rightly understood and defended before the 
Honorable Court; the Court taking the same into considera- 
tion ordered that the said Matthew Lyon, Esqr., be allowed a 
new trial agreeable to his request, and that Friday next lo 
o'clock in the morning be assigned for the said trial to com- 
mence."* 

But Friday came and went, and no trial took plabe. 
Potent indeed must have been that request of Colonel Lyon. 
That some political manoeuvre or attack was hidden under 
this proceeding seems probable, for the Governor of the State, 
who was president of the Court, was absent, and Judge Chip- 
man was one of the managers against the defendant. Yet 
Lyon neither paid 500 pounds penalty, nor received any repri- 
mand, nor as will appear further on, did he pay a cent of costs 
of the prosecution of the case. He stamped out the whole 
trial and judgment of the Court by what he told his prosecu- 
tors, but not one syllable is recorded of what that sledge- 
hammer speech contained. The case fell through, and the 
greatest injustice was done to the defendant by the suppression 
of the record of what must surely have been a triumphant vin- 
dication of his personal and official character from a serious 
charge affecting both. That he was held absolutely blameless 
is shown by the tell-tale fact which the author has dug out of 
another and disconnected part of the records of the Court, 



oGov. and C, pp. 85-4. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 189 

namely, that the State itself, and not Lyon, paid the costs of 
the prosecution. Here is the record: 

" Adjourned from Friday to Monday next." But before 
adjourning on Friday this tell-tale resolution was adopted by 
the Court, which shows that Lyon had won, and that his en- 
emies took refuge in the appointment of a committee to beat 
about the bush in another direction. 

" Resolved that a committee be appointed to join a com- 
mittee appointed from the General Assembly to take under 
consideration the proceedings of the Court of Confiscation, the 
Commissioners of Sales and Sequestration, and the state of the 
titles of those who have purchased confiscated estates, state 
facts and make report. The Assemblis Committee, Mr. Slum- 
way, Mr. Chipman, Mr. Knoulton, Mr. Tilden and Mr. Loomis. 
Members of Council, his honor the deputy govr and Mr. Rob- 
inson — Adjourned."® It thus appears that the Assembly took 
the initiative in this abandonment of the attack on Colonel 
Lyon. The finale was the payment of the costs by the State, 
and that is stated in the following extract from the records of 
the Governor and Council : 

" Wednesday, 26 Oct. 1785- 

" Resolved that a committee be appointed to tax the bills of cost 
in the cases of Colonel Lyon and Justice Barrett's impeachments. 
Members chosen Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Porter.^ 

" Resolved that the Treasurer be directed to pay unto Israel Smith, 
Esqr, the sum of two pounds twelve shillings and 4d i Money out 
of some of the Hard Money taxes, it being the bill of cost on the 
trial of Colonel Matthew Lyon on impeachment. The said bill of 
costs is as follows, viz*. 



« Ibid, p. 87. 
fe Ibid, p. 9^2. 



190 MATTHEW LYON 

The impeachment io 15 

Two attorney fees, 155 i 10 

One subpoena 004 

Service 026 

One travel six miles i 6 

Attendance one day 3 

£2 12 14 

" This bill was examined and taxed by the Hon-iJle Samuel Fletcher 
and Thomas Porter Esq"", by Order of Council." <» 

Poor Justice Barrett did not fare so well. 

" Thursday, 27 Oct. 1785. 
" The bill of costs in the case of Col. Barrett's impeachment on the 
trial being committed to Mr. Niles and Mr. Fletcher to examine and 
tax (is) as follows to the amount of £11, 19, o, vizt." (A blank left 
for items on the record is not filled.) 

And one year later an execution issued against the Justice 
as appears by the following entry: 

" Thursday, 26 Oct. 1786. 

" An execution issued against John Barrett Esqr, for £27, 12s cost 

of the suit of impeachment. 

" Signed by Order of Council."* 

Vermont writers have always been in doubt as to the out- 
come of this prosecution of Colonel Lyon by somebody inter- 
ested in getting hold of the records of the Court of Confisca- 
tion, The attempt to intimidate Lyon by fine and impeach- 
ment utterly fell through, the State was saddled with the costs, 
and the tell-tale record was practically suppressed. Here for 
the first time a connected narrative of this very tricky transac- 
tion is presented to the public, and especially to the people of 
Vermont, who have always had a kindly place in their hearts 
for Matthew Lyon. Truth in the end cannot be kept back. 

a Ibid, p. 93. 
6 Ibid, p. 112. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I9I 

Reference has been made in these pages to the intimate 
relations between Ethan Allen and Matthew Lyon. Their 
friendship began in the early day while they yet lived in Litch- 
field County, Connecticut. Allen's iron works at Salisbury 
must have been the place where Lyon acquired intimate knowl- 
edge of the iron business in which 'he was afterwards so exten- 
sively engaged in Vermont. His marriage in Connecticut to 
Miss Hosford, a niece of Ethan Allen, confirmed their rela- 
tions, and the intimacy between the two families continued to 
be kept up in Vermont in the closest ties of friendship. Lyon 
named one of his daughters Loraine, after Loraine Allen, as a 
compliment to and mark of his affection for the favorite 
daughter of General Allen. Of the latter lady many anecdotes 
are related by Vermont chroniclers, of her likeness to her cele- 
brated father, both in character and person, and even some say 
that she shared to a certain extent in her father's scepticism in 
matters of religion. But woman's nature shrinks from infi- 
delity, and the story runs that Loraine Allen in her last sick- 
ness asked her father, "Whose faith shall I embrace, yours or 
that of my mother? " The redoubtable Ethan, forgetting his 
" Oracles of Reason," and deeply moved, answered, " That of 
your mother." Whether authentic or not, the story has come 
down to us, and President Dwight has made it the text of a 
good homily. Rev. F. A. Wadleigh, in his interesting chron- 
icles of Arlington, has some reminiscences of Loraine Allen, 
whose vein of humor sometimes ran into odd conceits. She 
was very much attached to Colonel Lyon. He often charmed 
her by descriptions of his native county in Ireland, the Vale of 
Avoca within its borders, and the enchanting scenery of the 
Golden Belt. One day, after listening to an animated story of 



192 MATTHEW LYON 

Wicklow by the Colonel, she quaintly changed the subject to 
death, made a sport of dying, and told him she meant shortly 
to leave the world, and had selected Ireland as her place of 
exit. The anecdote is related by Rev. Mr. Wadleigh, who 
says: " She asked Colonel Lyon, who was very fond of her, 
if he had any messages to send to his friends in the old country, 
for she expected to go by the way of Cork."'* 

Fanny, the youngest daughter of Ethan Allen, was of 
a more serious temperament than her sister. She be- 
came a convert to the Catholic Church, and a nun 
of the Sisterhood or Convent Hotel Dieu in Montreal. 
" Multitudes of New England people visiting Montreal," 
says the writer of a book published at Burlington, Ver- 
mont, in 1886, ** flocked to the Convent, begging to see the 
lovely young nun of the Hotel Dieu, who was the first daughter 
New England had given to the sacred enclosure, and whom 
they claimed as belonging especially to them through her con- 
nection with their favorite Revolutionary hero. So continual 
were these interruptions that she was driven at length to obtain 
the permission of the Mother Superior absolutely to decline 
appearing in answer to such calls, except when they were made 
by friends of former days, for whom she still preserved and 
cherished the liveliest affection."'' 

The married life of Colonel Lyon was a happy one. Four 
children were born to him. His wife lived for twelve years 
after her marriage to him, and died at Arlington, the place of 
residence of her husband, in the year 1782. 



a Vermont Historical Gazetteer, Vol. I, p. I3S- 

b Catholic Memoirs of Vermont and New Hampshire, p. 22. Bur- 
lington: 1886. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I93 

The bereavement was a severe one. Lyon, with strong 
family affections and domestic tastes, became a widower with 
four motherless little children to maintain and educate. But 
he took paternal pride in the duty, and had the comfort and 
happiness of rearing them well, and of seeing them develop into 
fine characters and ornaments of the social life of the com- 
munity. He was becoming wealthy and abundantly able to 
gratify his fondness and ambition for his children. 

The many stirring scenes in which they had mingled, and 
their joint work of crushing out Toryism at Arlington, which 
before had been the British stronghold in Vermont, brought 
Governor Thomas Chittenden and Matthew Lyon into habits 
of intimacy and devoted personal friendship. The Colonel 
was always a welcome guest at the fireside of the Governor. 
The destinies of Vermont at that day were largely controlled 
by these two remarkable men. Indeed, their operations and 
■success in propagating American ideas and American senti- 
ments of loyalty in this seat of rank Toryism proved the pivotal 
or turning point in shaping the future policy of the Green 
Mountain State. It was a stern struggle, the work constant 
and engrossing. Relief and relaxation came in the evening in 
the home circle of the Governor, where cares of State gave 
place to the charms of female society, and the merry music of 
wheel and distaff in that age of Homespun made the hearth- 
stone of domesticity peculiarly cheerful and soothing. Qever 
sons and comely daughters to the number of eleven were the 
legacy or jewels of the Governor. 

General Isaac Clark, known as " Old Rifle," a brave soldier 
of two wars, became the husband of Hannah Chittenden in the 
year 1779. Her own father performed the ceremony, and gave 



194 MATTHEW LYON 

his daughter's hand to the man who had won her heart. " Old 
Rifle " was town clerk of Ira, Rutland County, and those cu- 
rious in turning over ancient memorials may still find this item 
in the record book of the town: 

" Ira, 5th September, 1779. Then recorded the marriage of 
Isaac Clark and Hannah Chittenden on the i8th day of Jan- 
uar\^, 1779: Married by Governor Chittenden and recorded by 
Isaac Clark, town Clerk."'' 

Beulah, the fourth daughter of the Governor, is described in 
contemporary chronicles as a very intelligent and pretty young 
lady, who, at the age of sweet sixteen, became the wife of 
George Galusha, son of a future Governor of the State. Young 
Galusha lived but a year or two, and Madame Beulah had put 
on the weeds of widowhood at about the very time Colonel 
Lyon became a widower. He was a little past thirty, she 
scarcely twenty years of age. Is it strange that the two young 
people sympathized with each other in their mutual bereave- 
ment — any wonder that pity in a short time melted into love, 
and in a year more another marriage assuaged grief of widow 
and widower, and made Matthew Lyon and Beulah Galusha the 
happiest young couple in the town of Arlington? I have not 
had the opportunity to examine the old Arlington records and 
find out whether the father of the bride, as in likelihood he did, 
again performed the marriage ceremony, tied the knot, and 
gave away the hand of his daughter to her liege lord. But 
this is known. No more devoted couple ever entered into the 
holy state of matrimony at Arlington than Matthew Lyon and 
the daughter of Governor Chittenden. A large and interest- 
ing family of sons and daughters, a quiver full, blessed their 

Vermont Historical Gazeteer, Vol. Ill, p. 779. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I95 

long union of nearly forty years duration, during the course 
of which, with admirable spirit and cheerfulness, the wife went 
iabout her duties, and the husband, as we are told by the 
learned antiquarians White and Walton, became one of the 
most successful business men and political leaders in Vermont, 
and, as we are further told by the distinguished historian Col- 
lins, " the most remarkable character among the public men of 
southwestern Kentucky."<* Matthew Lyon, next to Alexander 
Hamilton, was the most powerful antagonist of one President, 
John Adams, who put him in a dungeon; and he also became 
the most serviceable friend of another President, Thomas Jef- 
ferson, by casting the vote that elected him. 

Colonel Lyon was returned to the Assembly four times dur- 
ing his residence in Arlington, becoming well known as an 
effective and eloquent debater and practical man of affairs. 
The records show that he was selected to serve on the leading 
committees of the Legislature. He also held during his resi- 
dence at Arlington the positions of Deputy Secretary of the 
Council, Secretary of the Board of War, and other offices of 
importance. 

He was one of the grantees of the town of Fair Haven 
when its charter was obtained from the Legislature, and hav- 
ing already bought several valuable tracts along Poultney 
river Colonel Lyon removed from Arlington in the latter part 
of the year 1783 and established his home in the new settle- 
ment, becoming the founder and father of the town.* Fair 
Haven was originally known on account of the mills, the facto- 
ries and the furnaces he established there as " Lyon's Works."*' 

o Collins's History of Kentucky, Vol. II, p. 491. 
^ Adams's History of Fair Haven, p. 190, 
clbid, p. 62. 



196 MATTHEW LYON 

We have the testimony of an eye witness to his advent at Fair 
Haven, one who beheld the white canvas emigrant train of 
the pioneer as it wound along and forded the river to its desti- 
nation. " It was in 1783," I quote from Miss Gilbert's "Rem- 
iniscences of Fair Haven," " that a little girl stood on the bank 
of Poultney river watching some loaded teams ford the stream. 
That girl was Sally Benjamin, who lived until a few years since. 
The wagons contained Colonel Lyon with his family and 
goods, on their way to found the town of Fair Haven, of which 
he was one of the proprietors."" 

It would have filled old Jabez Bacon with delight to have 
beheld his Ancient Woodbury apprentice all aglow with Yan- 
kee enterprise, laying the foundations of a town and renewing 
the face of the earth on Poultney river. Colonel Lyon used 
the streams for mills and factories, and the forests for the 
manufacture of basswood paper; the first record of such an 
invention the writer has found in the history of those times. 
The broken mortars and cannon and small arms about Ticon- 
deroga, and on many a historic field of fight in the Revolution 
were beaten literally into plough shares, and licked into new 
shapes for agricultural purposes in the blazing furnace blasts 
along Poultney river. The redemptioner who was not 
ashamed of " the two bulls that redeemed him " was fashioning 
the broken implements of war into bar iron, nails, hoes, spades, 
shovels and tradesmen's tools, like another Mulciber at work 
among his mechanical arts. He reclaimed the wilds of nature, 
and made the place the abode of a thriving settlement of Green 
Mountain Boys. President Timothy Dwight, as we have seen 

a Rutland County Centennial Celebration. R. Co. Hist. Soc. 1883. 
Vol. I, p. 146. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 197 

in a former chapter, found little to please him in this part of 
Vermont until he reached the village of Fair Haven, and he 
there paused to admire Lyon's Works. The graphic Dr. J. A. 
Graham, in his " Sketch of Vermont/' was full of commenda- 
tions of the intrepid pioneer who built up this flourishing town. 
jThe editor of the " Records of Governor and Council," the 
Hon. E. P. Walton, was equally emphatic in appreciation of 
Matthew Lyon's extraordinary business capacity. Even the 
last man in the world from whom to expect it, Henry B. Daw- 
son, in the New York " Historical Magazine," finds room for 
praise. 

" Fair Haven is generally a rough, disagreeable township," 
says President Dwight. " The only exception to this remark, 
within our view, was on its southern limit, along Poultney 
river, where there is a small tract of handsome in- 
tervals. The only cheerful object which met our view before 
we reached the river was a collection of very busy mills and 
other water works."" These were in the town founded by 
Matthew Lyon. 

" Fair Haven," says Dr. Graham, " joins on Skeensborough, 
and is the most flourishing town in the State. It owes its con- 
sequence to its founder, Colonel Lyon, whose enterprise and 
perseverance in carrying on manufactories have been of infinite 
utihty to the public, to the gratitude of which he has the 
strongest claims. He has erected a furnace for casting all 
kinds of hollow ironware, and two forges, a slitting mill for the 
making of nail-rods, a paper mill, a printing press, and corn 
and saw mills. * * * It is a curious fact that Colonel Lyon 
has executed a good deal of printing at his office, on paper 

fl Dwight's Travels in New England and New York, II, 455. 



198 MATTHEW LYON 

manufactured by himself of the bark of the basswood tree, and 
which is found to answer every purpose for common printing. 
He has held some of the first offices in the State, and no man 
in it can be found more qualified to do so, as his knowledge of 
the finances and situation of the country is scarcely to be 
equalled ; nor does his integrity ever suffer him to lose sight of 
the real good of the people. * * * His friendship and 
generosity are as great as his ambition. * * * His pas- 
sions and all his pursuits flow from the noblest feelings of the 
heart; they are all exerted for the benefit of mankind, and not 
only endear him to my esteem, but secure to him the respect 
and affection of all those who are happy in his acquaintance, 
or who have a knowledge of his character."'^ 

" Matthew Lyon," says the discriminating Mr. E. P. Wal- 
ton, " deserves to be ranked among the remarkable men of 
Vermont. * * * He was a terse and vigorous writer and 
able debater. * * * However valuable to the State the 
services of Matthew Lyon may have been in the many public 
offices he filled, it may be doubted whether his influence as an 
enterprising and energetic business man was not even more 
valuable. He was daring in his enterprises, and had he either 
neglected politics and given his intellect and skill to business, 
or given less attention to business and more to culture in law 
and statesmanship, he might have been an eminently success- 
ful man. * * * He was on the whole probably more use- 
ful to the public than to himself."* 

The " Historical Magazine," of New York, generally so 
spiteful when Vermont or /ermonters was the subject of re- 



oDr. John A. Graham's "Sketch of Vermont." An interesting 
book, dedicated to the Duke of Montrose, a cousin of its author. 
^Records of Governor and Council, I, 123 et seq. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I99 

mark, quoted with approval from the " Salem Gazette " the 
following notice of Matthew Lyon : 

" Basswood paper. Several papers refer to this article as a 
recent invention. It is not so. As early as 1796 a newspaper 
prepared from basswood was printed in Vermont by the cele- 
brated Matthew Lyon, bearing the title of ' The Scourge of 
Aristocracy and Repository of Important Political Truth.' It 
was in this paper that Lyon published the libel for which he 
was tried and convicted under the famous Sedition Law."" 
There are two or three inaccuracies in this article, but the re- 
mark on the invention of basswood paper by Lyon is pertinent 
and curious. 

The newspaper referred to was not established until 1798, 
and the letter of Lyon upon which he was convicted of sedition 
by his political enemies was published in the " Windsor Jour- 
nal," an unfriendly paper, and not in the " Scourge of Aristoc- 
racy," a friendly one. Fortunes in wood pulp have been made 
in our own age, and ex-Senator Warner Miller, of New York, 
once bore the nickname of " Wood Pulp Miller." But old 
Colonel Lyon, in the forests of primitive Vermont, was the 
real inventor in the last century of the process for making 
paper from basswood. 

At this point in the career of Lyon, I am for a moment 
tempted to pause. It was here in the town of Fair Haven, 
which he founded, that the remarkable character of the man 
was brought into full play, his best traits were developed, and 
his indomitable energy was concentrated in useful schemes for 
the State of his adoption. Here he evinced unselfish zeal for 
the public good; here he built up numerous works of internal 

o Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries, Nov. 1867, p. 308. 



200 MATTHEW LYON 

improvement; here showed heroic attachment to the cause of 
State Rights; here proclaimed and enforced persistently and 
inflexibly the rights of the common people against arbitrary 
power. Fleeing from king-tainted Europe, he had ever been 
a Democrat from his childhood in Wicklow, where he con- 
secrated himself to freedom in the blood of a murdered father; 
at the Dublin printing case, where perhaps Charles Lucas ut- 
tered the same battle cry for man; in Connecticut, where he 
joined the Sons of Liberty against the Stamp Act. His loath- 
ing of monarchy and all arbitrary and centralized power was 
inbred and almost fanatical. As a Green Mountain Boy, mem- 
ber of the old Council of Safety of Vermont, in the ranks of 
Warner and Stark at Bennington, and in the Continental army 
at Saratoga, where tyranny received an almost fatal blow, Mat- 
thew Lyon had become a champion of American Democracy, 
a people's man as distinguished from an aristocrat, a disciple of 
the school of Thomas Jefiferson, his political idol. What Lyon 
believed, that he was pretty sure to practice. He was aston- 
ished to see Tories growing in influence after the close of the 
war, with the Federalists led by Hamilton affecting English 
forms and precedents, and only waiting, though most happily 
waiting in vain, for Washington to nod assent in order to clap 
a crown upon his head. 

Thus Matthew Lyon became a Democrat of Democrats, 
and regarding the Federalists as thinly disguised Tories, he 
waged ceaseless warfare against them. As Jefferson stripped 
for the fight in Virginia, grappled with primogeniture, the tithe- 
gatherers of the Established Church and the enemies of re- 
ligious liberty, so Lyon sprang into the breach in Vermont in 
the same fight, defeated the Federalists after a prolonged bat- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 201 

tie, and became the pioneer Democrat of New England. 
While forgiveness is wise and magnanimous in governments, 
and even English loyalists were included in the scope of Ameri- 
can amnesty for the past, it is nevertheless true that many 
strong Tories, stout Britons in all but the name, sought citi- 
zenship after the Revolution and enrolled themselves as mem- 
bers of the Federal party. The tone and complexion which 
they gave to that party led finally to its downfall and extinc- 
tion after the war of 1812. Naturally the great apostle of the 
opposite school of Republicanism became the object of their 
most bitter attacks. Scrape a Federalist, and if you should 
not find a Tory, his distinguishing mark was very apt to be 
antipathy to Thomas Jefferson, and in Vermont to Matthew 
Lyon. But Thomas Jefferson was rather helped than impeded 
by this aversion. Considering its source it was quite logical, 
and viewing its effects very beneficial to the object of its en- 
mity. Patriotic Americans rallied to his standards everywhere, 
the more the Federalists abused the author of the Declaration 
of Independence. That celebrated statesman, Daniel Webster, 
visited the Sage of Monticello shortly before the latter's death, 
and afterwards declared to Peter Harvey that no other Ameri- 
can had exerted so large an influence as Jefferson over the 
people and destinies of the United States. 

The number of Tories who became citizens after the Revolu- 
tion was unexpectedly large. There were immense numbers 
of them, as Sabine's " American LoyaHsts " reveals to us. The 
late Henry Ward Beecher once went so far as to say that the 
best blood in America coursed in their veins, and strangely 
enough he took occasion to say it in 1883, at the centennial 
celebration of the evacuation of the city of New York by the 



202 MATTHEW LYON 

British, when people were in the humor rather for American 
than EngUsh buncombe. 

Between Lyon and the Tories or Federahsts there was im- 
placable hostility. At him they hurled shafts of malice, ridi- 
cule and opprobrium ; at them he levelled barbed arrows of de- 
nunciation and scornfully fierce invective. Indeed the charac- 
ter of Lyon is a study. His convictions ran clear to the bot- 
tom of subjects, and nothing he said or did was commonplace. 
Like his antagonist, old John Adams of Braintree, a fighting 
doctrinaire in council, and like John Stark at Bennington, a 
Celtic thunderbolt in war, he never appeared dimly in any 
of the transactions of his day, but always a clear cut substan- 
tiality in every line and lineament ; never turgid, never a Grad- 
grind, but always in bold relief, a tribune of the people. 

No one can read the very full " History of Fair Haven," by 
Mr. C. N. Adams, without being impressed with the business 
ability and public spirit of Matthew Lyon. Evidently he is 
not a favorite of that painstaking and industrious chronicler, 
but in Mr. Adams's dry details of names of settlers, whence 
they came, who they were, how much land they purchased, 
their avocations and the like, through the whole long account 
of the people of Fair Haven and their doings in the olden day, 
the presence of Matthew Lyon is felt and seen as that of the 
central figure of a history not written to celebrate his exploits, 
or with any partiality or leanings towards him personally. 
That he was a man of action, with a power to lead others, the 
highest gift of Heaven to man, as John Randolph once said, is 
demonstrated by Mr. Adams, even though that writer has not 
a particle of coloring in his book, but confines it to dry statis- 
tics, local happenings, and names, dates and land titles, of in- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 203 

terest solely to the people of the town. There Lyon was coun- 
seling, constructing and taking the initiative among his neigh- 
bors; choosing business sites which, after a century are busi- 
ness sites still, filling the place with diversified industries, in a 
word he was the founder and father of the town. Mr. Adams 
chronicles the names of some notable Vermonters who were 
natives of the place ; many well-known and some distinguished 
men have lived there ; but the pioneer who first came and laid it 
out is still after more than a hundred years the most conspicu- 
ous and remarkable personality in the history of Fair Haven. 
Those who knew him best liked him most; no office was too 
high for their favorite; no man in their opinion so well fitted 
to fill it as Matthew Lyon. 

At the first election of a United States Senator by the Legis- 
lature, in 1 791, the name of Colonel Lyon appears among the 
favorites of the people for that office. The following extract 
from " Records of Governor and Council," refers to the sena- 
torial election : 

" In CounciL Monday, 
" Windsor, 17 October, 1791 

" Resolved to join the House in Grand Committee at 2 o'clock, 
P. M. for the purpose of Electing Senators agreeable to the order 
of Saturday. * * * The Governor and Council joined accordingly 
and compared the nomination, when the Honorable Moses Robinson 
and Stephen R. Bradley, was declared to be duly Elected Senators 
to Represent this State in the Congress of the United States." 

" Neither the official records nor the Vermont newspapers 
give the names of the unsuccessful candidates; and the only 
clue discovered is a copy in the ' Vermont Journal ' of Octo- 
ber 18, 1 791, of a humorous handbill which was posted in 



204 MATTHEW LYON 

Windsor on the day preceding the election. Ti characterized 
the election as ' Federal Racing,' and described the racers thus: 

" Eastern Racers. 

' The Past-Time— Stephen R. Bradley. 

* Peacock — Possibly Elijah Paine. 

* Pretty Town Horse — Old Roger Enos. 

* Narragansett Pacer — Jonathan Arnold. 

* Connecticut Blue — Nathaniel Niles. 

" Western Racers. 

' The Old Script — Moses Robinson. 
' * Jersey Sleek — Isaac Tichenor. 
' Figure, Bold Sweeper — Probably Matthew Lyon. 
' Northern Ranger — Probably Samuel Hitchcock.' "<* 

At the first, second, third and fourth Congressional elections 
in Vermont, the friends of Matthew Lyon supported him en- 
thusiastically for that office. Although defeated three times 
in a close poll, the Colonel was not discouraged, but was more 
determined after each defeat to carry the banner of Democracy 
to victory. It was this grit and unconquerable purpose that 
drew from Rev. Pliny H. White the following remarks in his 
Lyon address: 

" The distinguishing traits in Matthew Lyon's character were 
boldness, energy, perseverance and a resolute will. No under- 
taking was too hazardous for him to enter upon, no obstacle 
too great for him to encounter, no delay long enough to weary 
him out. From every defeat he rose like Antaeus from mother 
earth, strengthened for another trial. Once having fixed his 
eye upon an object to be acquired, he never lost sight of it. 
The prize at which he aimed might repeatedly elude his grasp, 
but he pursued it none the less steadily and persistently."*- 

Vermont Governor and Council, Vol. IV, pp. 5 and 6. 
l» Rev. P. H. White's Address on Matthew Lyon, p. 2S 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 20$ 

At the Presidential and Congressional elections of 1796, 
when Adams and Jefferson were elected President and Vice- 
President, Matthew Lyon was elected to Congress from the 
Western part of Vermont, the State being entitled to two mem- 
bers, one from the West, the other from the East, and he 
repaired to Philadelphia, then temporary seat of the Federal 
Government, to enter upon his new field of duties in the month 
of May, 1797. 

The town of Fair Haven was organized August 28, 1783, 
whether immediately preceding or after Colonel Lyon located 
his family in the place is not clear. He was himself no doubt 
on the spot, as he at once took the leading part in affairs, and 
all looked up to him as their directing spirit. He built a forge, 
a gristmill, a papermill and sawmill, and became an extensive 
manufacturer in iron as well as in paper and lumber. At 
heavy cost and with great labor he transported the requisite 
machinery from Lenox, Massachusetts. He was well ac- 
quainted with the business of ship building. In a letter to 
President Monroe many years later, June 7, 1817, he said: 
" I have built many sea vessels on my own account, for which I 
have searched and selected the timber. The construction of 
ships has been a subject on which I have read much and 
thought much. I have conversed with ship builders, ship 
owners, and timber getters. I for many years followed getting 
ship timber on Lake Champlain for the London market." 

So sound was his business judgment and particularly his 
knowledge of the proper sites for his various branches of trade, 
that Rev. Mr. White, the Vermont antiquarian, in his address 
before the Historical Society of that State, declared that they 
were used for similar purposes in 1858, seventy odd years after 



206 MATTHEW LYON 

Lyon had selected them. Later on he started a printing office 
in his papermill, and commenced in 1793 the " Farmer's 
Library," a small sized newspaper, the editorial management 
being divided between himself and his son James, the printer, 
Mr. Spooner, supplying local articles. At the time this paper 
was established there were but three other papers in the State, 
the Bennington " Gazette," the Windsor " Journal " and 
the Rutland " Herald." Colonel Lyon continued his paper for 
three or four years, changing its name to the Fair Haven 
" Gazette." His object was not to make money, the sparse 
population rendering a large circulation and remunerative ad- 
vertizers out of the question. Indeed he conducted it as a 
losing business throughout. But so marked was the spread of 
Federalism or Toryism to the eastward that Colonel Lyon was 
willing to lose money rather than that the people should be 
deprived of an organ of those doctrines and sentiments which 
had been so popular in the time of the Revolution, and without 
which that momentous conflict could not have been main- 
tained. The " Gazette " accomplished its purpose and kept 
the people in line with the sound Republicanism of '76. Not 
content with giving them a lively newspaper, the Colonel 
sought to cultivate among the early settlers a wholesome taste 
for literature and useful knowledge. He issued a number of 
books from his press, and in the list I find a " Life of Ben- 
jamin Franklin," and a novel called " Alphonso and Dalinda." 
After he left Fair Haven fifty-six years elapsed before another 
book was issued in the town. During an exciting political 
contest in his district in 1798, when he was again running for 
Congress, he sent some communications to the Rutland 
" Herald," but the editor, Dr. Samuel .Williams, refused them a 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 20J 

place in his columns. Colonel Lyon would not be muzzled, 
and forthwith began a semi-monthly magazine in Fair Haven, 
bearing the defiant and sounding name of " The Scourge of 
Aristocracy and Repository of Important Political Truth." 
The first number was issued October i, 1798, and the subscrip- 
tion price was $3 per annum. It was published for 
one year. " It was a duodecimo," says Mr. White, " of thirty- 
six pages, nominally edited and published by James Lyon, but 
containing much from the pen of the Colonel himself." 

It was to the " Scourge of ^Aristocracy " that Lyon's indict- 
ment under the Sedition Law was really due and may be plainly 
traced. The first number of the " Scourge" appeared on the 
first of October, 1798, and four days after, October the 5th, 
1798, he was indicted. He was too prudent to leave a loop- 
hole in his articles in that paper for the Federalists to stick a 
peg there and hang a prosecution on it against him. But loop- 
holes and pegs are not necessary for men bent on mischief with 
arbitrary power in their hands. The " Scourge " made the fur 
fly in other directions, and also made his enemies still more 
astute to catch him. Fourteen days before the Sedition Act 
passed Congress Lyon wrote a letter to an individual in 
Vermont^ criticising John Adams in terms which are mildness 
itself contrasted with the slashing criticisms of our Presidents 
by latter-day editors. The emissaries of John Adams hunted 
up this letter and published it in the Vermont or Windsor 
*' Journal " after the passage of the act, and by that ex post facto 
trick circumvented Lyon, and with their Alien and Sedition 
net landed him safe in prison. The " Scourge of Aristocracy " 
therefore played an important part in an historic drama, in 
the first act of which John Adams plucked Matthew Lyon out 



2o8 MATTHEW LYON 

of his seat in Congress, and sent him in exile to Ver^ennes 
jail; in the second act of which Lyon in his turn, while still a 
prisoner of State, plucked John Adams out of his seat in the 
Presidential chair, sent him in exile to Braintree, and won 
back his own seat in the House. Lyon's letter and quota- 
tions from Joel Barlow furnished the loophole, the " Scourge 
of Aristocracy " supplied the peg, and the liberty of the press 
became the real issue. Matthew Lyon killed the Alien and 
Sedition laws as dead as Marley, and John Adams was " hoist 
with his own petar." 

At the sale of the great Brinley library in New York in 
1878, a bound volume of " The Scourge of Aristocracy " was 
sold, and the present writer was a competitor with Yale Col- 
lege for its purchase. I bid $12.50 for it, but the College, 
which was a five thousand dollars legatee of Mr. Brinley, to be 
applied in the purchase of books in his vast library, bid $12.75, 
and carried off the " Scourge." That copy is now in the 
library of Yale College. Another copy is in the Vermont 
State library. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 209 



CHAPTER V. 

BROW BEATINGS AND INSULTS — AFFLICTING PERSECUTIONS 
AND PERSONAL INDIGNITIES — MONARCHIE MASQUE — LYON 
ENTERS CONGRESS — CHIPMAN's LITTLE STORIES PRECIPITATE 
THE LYON-GRISWOLD FIGHT — CONGRESS A BEAR GARDEN — 
ITS GLADIATORIAL RECORD FOR A CENTURY. 

n nPHE insolent vices of prosperity," according to Gibbon, 
were among the chief causes which laid the Roman 
Empire in the dust. During the second administration of 
Washington the Federalists gained complete ascendency in 
Congress, and by the time Adams succeeded to the Presidency 
the manners and customs of the day were aristocratic, exclu- 
sive and rapidly tending to haughty feudal castes in American 
society. " Pride," says the good Book, " goeth before de- 
struction." 

In the Anas," Mr. Jefferson calls attention to the growing 
preference of the Federalists for monarchy: 

" December 26, 1797. Harper lately in a large company 
was saying that the best thing the friends of the French could 
do, was to pray for the restoration of their monarch. ' Then,' 
says a bystander, ' the best thing we could do, I suppose, 
would be to pray for the establishment of a monarch in the 
United States.' ' Our people,' says Harper, ' are not yet ripe 
for it, but it is the best thing we can come to, and we shall 
come to it.' Something like this was said in the presence of 

o " Jefferson's Works," IX, 187. 



210 MATTHEW LYON 

Findlay. He now denies it in the public papers, though it 
can be proved by several members." 

Under Adams this spirit grew apace, and matters rapidly 
tended from bad to worse. It was the Monarchic Masque, ac- 
cording to Professor George Tucker. 

The ladies of the new dynasty of Snobbium Gatherum out- 
stripped their husbands as apists of English aristocracy. In 
a letter to his wife Mr. Gallatin draws to the life an under study 
of Mrs. Abigail Adams, the lady of the President. " Phila- 
delphia, 19th June, 1797. I dine next Thursday at court. 
Courtland dining there the other day, heard her majesty, as 
she was asking the names of the dififerent members of Con- 
gress to Hindman, and being told that of some one of the 
aristocratic party, say, 'Ah, that is one of our people.' So 
that she is Mrs. President, not of the United States, but of 
a faction. * * * But it is not right. Indeed, my beloved, you 
are infinitely more lovely than politics." After the words "of a 
faction," Mr. Adams, the editor, has stars; something interest- 
ing is left out. A faithful limner should copy the picture bet- 
ter.® 

When JefTerson was about to withdraw from public life in 
1809, a farewell address recounting his services was presented 
to him by his friends. One of those services was omitted 
which the retiring President deemed it proper to mention, as 
weightier than many other matters thought worthy of praise. 
" There is one, however," said he, " not therein specified, the 
most important in its consequences of any transaction in any 
portion of my hfe; to wit, the head I personally made against 
the Federal principles and proceedings during the administra- 

" Life of Albert Gallatin," by Henry Adams, p. 185. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 211 

tion of Mr. Adams. Their usurpations and violations of the 
Constitution at that period, and their majority in both Houses 
of Congress, were so great, so decided and so daring, that 
after combating their agressions inch by inch without being 
able in the least to check their career, the Republican leaders 
thought it would be best for them to give up their useless 
efforts there, go home, get into their respective Legislatures, 
embody whatever of resistance they could be formed into, and, 
if ineffectual, to perish there as in the last ditch. All, there- 
fore, retired, leaving Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and myself in the Senate, where I then presided as 
Vice-President. Remaining at our posts, and bidding defiance 
to the brow-beatings and insults by which they endeavored 
to drive us off also, we kept the mass of Republicans in 
phalanx together, until the Legislature could be brought up 
to the charge; and nothing on earth is more certain than that 
if myself particularly, placed by my office of Vice-President 
at the head of the Republicans, had given way and withdrawn 
from my post, the RepubHcans throughout the Union would 
have given up in despair, and the cause would have been lost 
forever. 

" By holding on we obtained time for the Legislature to 
come up with their weight; and those of Virginia and Ken- 
tucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their 
celebrated resolutions, saved the Constitution at its last gasp. 
No person who was not a witness of the scenes of that gloomy 
period can form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and 
personal indignities we had to brook. They saved our coun- 
try, however. The spirits of the people were so much subdued 
and reduced to despair by the X Y Z imposture, and other 



212 MATTHEW LYON 

Stratagems and machinations, that they would have sunk into 
apathy and monarchy, as the only form of government which 
could maintain itself."" 

Among the stratagems alluded to by Mr. Jefferson, was the 
billingsgate of William Cobbett, the unrivalled scold of Ameri- 
can politics. " Cobbettized him," as Sir Jonah Barrington, al- 
ways happy at turning phrases, styled slanderers, for Cobbett 
afterwards figured in the British Parliament, and gloried in his 
chosen name of Peter Porcupine. He was the Federal bull- 
dog, and gnashed at Democrats unmercifully. No sooner had 
Col. Matthew Lyon arrived in Philadelphia to take his seat 
in Congress in the spring of 1797, having been chosen at the 
last election by the people of Vermont to represent them in 
that body, than the following cartoon appeared in Porcupine's 

Gazette: 

" Tuesday, 6th June. 

" The Lyon of Vermont. To-morrow at eleven o'clock 
will be exposed to public view the Lyon of Vermont. This 
singular animal is said to have been caught on the bog of 
Hibernia, and, when a whelp, transported to America; curi- 
osity induced a New Yorker to buy him, and moving into 
the country, afterwards exchanged him for a yoke of young 
bulls with a Vermontese. He was petted in the neighborhood 
of Governor Chittenden, and soon became so domesticated, 
that a daughter of his Excellency would stroke him and play 
with him as a monkey. He differs considerably from the 
African lion, is much more clamorous and less magnanimous. 
His pelt resembles more the wolf or the tiger, and his gestures 
bear a remarkable affinity to the bear; this, however, may be 



o "-Jefferson's Works," IX, 507-8. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 213 

ascribed to his having been in the habit of associating with 
that species of wild beast on the mountain; he is carnivorous, 
but not very ferocious — has never been detected in having 
attacked a nian, but report says he will beat women. 

"He was brought to this city in a wagon, and has several 
days exposed himself to the public. It has been motioned to 
cage him — as he has discovered much uneasiness at going 
with the crowd. 

"(Note: It will be seen in the proceedings of Congress, 
that this beast asked leave to be excused from going with the 
rest of the members to wait on the President.) Many gentle- 
men, who have seen him, do not hesitate to declare, they think 
him a most extraordianry beast."" 

The animus of this elegant extract is found in the Note. 
Colonel Lyon opposed the courtly custom of answering the 
President's speech by the personal attendance of every mem- 
ber of Congress in the audience room of the Executive. The 
whole business of such answers, street processions and soft 
speeches of mutual admiration, first by the President coming 
to dehver his compliments to Congress, and next of the Con- 
gress going en masse to deliver their compliments to the Presi- 
dent, smacked of king, lords and commons, and was repugnant 
to the democratic tastes of the new member from Vermont. 
No longer was " Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Repre- 
sentatives," as Jefferson described him. He had received a 
positive ally in Matthew Lyon. Nor was Jefferson himself 
any longer alone in the Senate; at the same time that Lyon 
took his seat in the House, Andrew Jackson, an unknown 
Democrat, shortly destined, as Pope said of one Johnson of 

o "Porcupine's Works," VI, 16-17. 



214 MATTHEW LYON 

Grubb Street, to be deterre, was sworn in as the new Senator 
from '1 ennessee. It was not a great while before Cobbett's Por- 
cupine opened its broadsides on all three of these Democrats, 
Jefferson, Jackson and Lyon. I subjoin a specimen of its 
pleasantries : 

" Gimcrack's Museum is now opened for inspection, where 
may be seen the following curiosities: Wax-work Figures, 
Paintings and Menage of Beasts. 

" I. The identical wooden sword which was girded on the 
thigh of the hero of Onion River, with the musical notes 
which accompanied that brave man in his triumphal exit from 
the camp at Ticonderoga. 

"2. The American Orator; representing a member of Con- 
gress in solemn debate, spitting in the eye of his opponent, 
to clear it from the mist of prejudice. 

" 4. The Pismires out of Office, by Monroe and T. Coxe. 

" 5. The Political Sinner, from the Flemish School, by A. 
Gallatin. 

" 7. Hotspur, by Jackson. 

" 8. The Fox at Fault, by Thomas Jefferson. 

" 9. In a convenient detached room may be seen The Ver- 
mont Lion; the greatest beast in the world. 

"Admittance one quarter of a dollar for grown persons — 
children at half price."'^ 

It must be confessed that Colonel Lyon was here in good 
company, pares cum paribus; three future Presidents of the 
United States. 

One or two features of this cabinet of curiosities call for a 
word of explanation. How came our old acquaintance, the 

o " Porcupine's Works," VIII, 118. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 21 5 

wooden sword, to reach Philadelphia girded on the member 
of Congress, whom Mr. Cobbett represents as spitting in the 
eye of his opponent to clear it from the mist of prejudice, and 
how came it to be brandished so publicly, not only by Porcu- 
pine, but in the Halls of Congress? Shabbily enough, indeed. 
Senator Nathaniel Chipman dug it up from an ancient rubbish 
heap in Vermont, where in a former chapter the reader has 
already seen it properly buried from sight with proofs of its 
silly mendacity and meanness. For uttering similar petty 
slanders Senator Chipman was once chastised long years before 
at the town of Westminster, Vermont, by Col. Matthew Lyon. 
For some reason Chipman had an unaccountable hatred of 
Lyon. He had unsuccessfully tried to stab his reputation by 
gathering up widely separated items from the secret documents 
of the commissioners of confiscation in the old evil days of the 
Haldimand intrigue, and demanding that Lyon should deliver 
up the books in which the story of that intrigue was supposed 
to be contained. We have seen that a committee of which he 
was a member had procured Lyon to be impeached and fined 
for not delivering up those tell-tale books, and we have also seen 
how Lyon came before Chipman's committee and put his foot 
on the insect brood of slanders which the latter gentleman 
was trying to propagate against him, and crushing* them out 
forever. There was some motive for Chipman's conduct. 
What was it? The only one which I can conjecture to have 
had any rational foundation was a possible desire to get back 
into his own custody the bogus letter which he once wrote and 
palmed ofif on the people of the Grants as a genuine epistle. 
The secret springs of human action must be known to give 
accuracy to the portraits of history. Was that Chipman's 



2l6 MATTHEW LYON 

motive? Did Lyon have that letter? Most likely he did. He 
was the Secretary of the Board of Confiscation or War, the 
son-in-law of Governor Chittenden, and his most confidential 
and trusted adviser. Chittenden and Lyon were Democrats; 
Chipman was a Federalist. Chittenden was once attacked and 
defeated for Governor by the Chipman party, but at the next 
election the slanders which had been hatched against Chitten- 
den and used to his temporary detriment, were stamped out, 
and he was triumphantly re-elected Governor, and held the 
office nearly as long as he lived. It was a period when things 
looked dark in Vermont, and the people were distracted, as 
Prof. James Davie Butler said in his 1846 address, by the 
" infinite conjugation of the verb suspect." The Haldimand 
intrigue, like the shirt of Nessus, clung tight and could not be 
gotten rid of, and Mr. Chipman's letter, falsely purporting to 
have been written by the British General St. Leger, had a 
treasonable squint, or as General Stark said, " an aspect of in- 
iquity," which perhaps made Chipman uncomfortable and 
anxious to get it back in his own hands. If JMatthew Lyon 
had that letter in his possession, to his credit be it said, he 
never made it known, never brought it to Philadelphia, nor 
waved it in Congress to show how Mr. Chipman once had been 
.in a conspiracy with the enemies of the United States to carry 
over Vermont to the English side in the Revolution, and make 
her a loyal colony of the mother country. He was too true a 
Vermonter, too much of a man for this. And yet had Lyon 
done so, he would have had far more justification for such a 
charge than Chipman had in brandishing a wooden sword over 
Matthew Lyon, because the letter was a fact and the wooden 
sword a lie. Mr. Henry Clark, of Rutland, Vermont, tells the 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 21/ 

Story of the bogus letter succinctly in his address upon the 
" Historical Value of Monuments," delivered at Castleton, 
January 15, 1881, before the Rutland County Historical So- 
ciety. " One hundred years ago," says Mr. Clark, " scenes 
were transpiring at that little fort pregnant with the weal or 
woe of the young republic of Vermont. Here practically was 
settled whether Vermont should retain her independence or 
give her allegiance to the British Crown. * * * j^ Sep- 
tember, 1 78 1, Ira Allen and Joseph Fay met the British com- 
missioners in secret conclave at Skeensboro (Whitehall) to per- 
fect their negotiations and renew the armistice. The Gover- 
nor was to be appointed by the King, and the Legislature by 
the people. * * * j^ ^^s at this time that Sergeant Tup- 
per was killed by one of St. Leger's scouts. General St. Leger 
decently buried the body, sent his clothing to General Enos 
with an open letter to Governor Chittenden, making apology 
for killing him, saying his picket not knowing the situation. 
As the letter was not sealed its contents became known among 
the officers and men, * * * and presently the whole 
Legislature were awake to the subject. * * * Governor 
Chittenden lost no time in assembling the Board of War at 
his room, all of whom were in the secret, and happened to be 
present. * * * The Board of War at once sent for 
Nathaniel Chipman of Tinmouth, as counsel, and let him into 
the secret, and it is said that he advised the course taken (to 
make out a new set of letters) and prepared the bogus letters 
which were read. Treason was snuflfed and the excitement in- 
tense. * * * Many doubts have been cast upon the au- 
thenticity of this transaction, but in the light of history its real- 



2l8 MATTHEW LYON 

ity and truth have been revealed." (Rutland County Hist. 
Soc, Vol. I, pp. 182, ct scq.) 

Nathaniel Chipman, son of a blacksmith, author of the bogus 
letter which was read before the Legislature at Charlestown, 
Vermont, in order to deceive the people, aroused over a sus- 
pected treasonable correspondence during the Revolution with 
a British officer, was now in 1797 a Senator of the United 
States from Vermont. He circulated malicious stories among 
congressmen to the prejudice of Matthew Lyon, and de- 
scended from his high station to defame a fellow Vermonter, 
and whisper stale, refuted slanders to Roger Griswold and 
others relative to the cashiering of Lyon by Gates. If he had 
told only the truth, for example, the story of the two bulls in 
which Colonel Lyon took much pride and which a modern 
writer, Rudyard Kipling, in his " Mowgli's Oath — ' By the bull 
that bought me,' "" has borrowed from the old Colonel 
with evident admiration of Lyon's epigrammatic style of em- 
ploying it when speaking of his exploits, that might be ex- 
cused on the score of political rivalry. But when he sat toad- 
like at the ears of congressmen from other States whispering 
gross fabrications and venomous slanders against a representa- 
tive from his own State, which, when they were repeated in his 
presence were repelled by that representative, and precipitated 
a disgraceful fight on the floor of Congress, the question arises, 
who was responsible for the fight, Chipman the back-biter, or 
Griswold and Lyon the fighters? 

Colonel Lyon took his seat in the House as a new member 
May the 15th, 1797, when the Federal Government was but 
eight years old. Already in Washington's first cabinet two 

o New York " Tribune," July 23, 1899. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 2ig 

commanding figures had appeared. Mr. Jefferson, the great 
apostle of Democracy, and Mr. Hamilton, the great apostle of 
Centralization. These two men saved the country from dis- 
union at the outset by a compromise between the North and 
South upon the national assumption of the debts of the States, 
and the choice of a seat of government. But Mr. Jefferson 
regretted his share in the compromise, and Mr. Hamilton, hav- 
ing control of the public purse, soon dominated the Cabinet of 
Washington. Great strategist as he was in statecraft, Hamil- 
ton confronted in Jefferson the only man in America who was 
his superior in handling large questions of public policy. As 
soon as he was convinced that Hamilton would win, for Wash- 
ington was on his side, and all the others were but pawns in his 
hands, Jefferson's next move was a masterly retreat. 

His unerring judgment in retiring from the Cabinet prob- 
ably saved him from the fate of poor Edmund Randolph, his 
successor, who fell victim to a contemptible plot of Oliver Wol- 
cott and the other Hamilton men surrounding Washington; 
and from the still more melancholy fate which afterwards over- 
took John Adams when the old Braintree hero's administra- 
tion was controlled and completely wrecked by the Hamil- 
ton faction. There is something pathetic in the story of the 
undoubting faith of John Adams in the Hamilton spy Wol- 
cott, who, after the President took him into his Cabinet as 
Secretary of the Treasury, betrayed all his secrets to his arch 
enemy, and in the end, with a knife in one hand, stretched out 
the other to accept from his impulsive, unsuspecting victim a 
life oiffce as Federal judge. 

" Some of the most delicate facts stated," wrote Hamilton 
to Wolcott, when about to send a Parthian shaft into the side 



220 MATTHEW LYON 

of Adams, " I hold from the three ministers, yourself particu- 
larly, and I do not think myself at liberty to take the step with- 
out your consent. I never mean to bring proof, but to stand 
upon the credit of my own veracity."" 

And he transmitted to the Cabinet spy the first draft of his 
philippic for him to spice more highly the " delicate facts," 
which task Wolcott forthwith performed. What a spectacle! 
Prudent Mr. Jefferson in getting out of reach! 

Wolcott next wrote an oily letter to the President, gushing 
with sycophantic thanks for the new office which Adams in 
man fashion had "bestowed, and sturdy old John replied hand- 
somely to his punic friend. Charles Francis Adams, in refer- 
ring to this reply of his grandfather to Wolcott, has put on 
record the following declaration: 

" To the day of his death Mr. Adams never suspected that 
the individual to whom he addressed this letter overflowing 
with kindness was the person who had secretly furnished the 
confidential information obtained as a Cabinet officer and ad- 
viser of the President, upon which Mr. Hamilton rested his 
attack upon his reputation, and had revised, corrected, 
amended and approved all of that paper whilst in manu- 
script. * * * 

" It is worthy of remark in this connection, that in all the 
subsequent vicissitudes of party conflict in the United States, no 
similar violation of confidence in Cabinet officers has ever 
taken place."^ 

On the 2d of June, 1797, the subject of the answer to the 



a " Gibb's Administration of Washington and Adams," II. 422. 
^ " Life and Works of John Adams," by his grandson Charles 
Francis Adams, IX, loo-ioi. 



.THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 221 

speech of the new President, Mr. Adams, was under discus- 
sion. Lyon opposed the mode of procedure, and for his hardi- 
hood was assailed by the Federahsts as a plebeian, and John 
Allen, of Connecticut, disdaining men with Irish brogue flung 
on these shores from Europe, appealed to the better blood and 
accent of Americans to keep Democrats in check. This put 
the Vermont Democrat on his mettle. He already perceived 
that some sneak from his own State had been whispering false 
stories about him, and the attempt to put him down by sneers 
and aristocratic airs brought him to his feet on the 3d of June 
with the following motion: 

" That such members as do not choose to attend upon the 
President, to present the answer to his speech, shall be ex- 
cused." Thereupon Matthew Lyon made his maiden speech 
in the halls of Congress. 

" Mr. Lyon said he yesterday voted against the appointment 
of a committee to wait upon the President to know when and 
where he would receive their address, because he believed the 
President should always be ready to receive important com- 
munications. He wished to make a motion." (Given above.) 
He wished to be understood. He thought the motion a 
reasonable one, it proposed to leave them at liberty to do as 
they pleased. And by the rules he saw he was obliged to 
attend. He was told he might stay behind without being 
noticed; but this was not enough for him, as he was a timid 
man, and the House had the law on their side, as he recollected 
something of a reprimand which had been given to Mr. Whit- 
ney. (The Speaker reminded him it was out of order to cen- 
sure the proceedings of the House on any former occasion.) 

He said he stood corrected and proceeded. 



222 MATTHEW LYON 

He had spoken, he said, to both sides of the House (as they 
were called) on the subject. One side dissuaded him from his 
motion, and laughed at it; the other side did not wish to join 
in it, because it would look like disrespect to the person lately 
elected, who was not a man of their choice; but he trusted our 
magnanimous President would, with the enlightened yeo- 
manry of America, despise such a boyish piece of business. 
This, he said, was no new subject with him; he had long heard 
the folly of the wise made a matter of wonder in this respect." 
It was said this was not the time to abolish the custom ; but this 
was the cant used against every kind of reform. No better 
time could ever arrive, he said, than this, which was the thres- 
hold of a new Presidency, at a time when the man elected to the 
office was beloved and revered by his fellow citizens; he was 
as yet unused to vain adulation; he had spent a great part of 
his life amongst a people whose love of a plainness of manners 
forbids all pageantry; he would be glad to see the custom done 
away. Were he acting in his own personal character, he per- 
haps might conform to the idle usage, but acting as he was for 
eighty thousand people, every father of a family in his district 
would condemn him for such an act. 

The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Allen) yesterday 
hoped there would be American blood enough to carry the 
question, (The Speaker again reminded him that he was out 
of order to allude to what was done yesterday, and said the 
proper motion would be to rescind the rule.)"* 

a Colonel Lyon here refers to Dr. Samuel Johnson's famous lines in 
"Vanity of Human Wishes": 

" Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! 
From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, 
And Swift expires a driveller and a show." 
ft Speaker Jonathan Dayton, afterwards in the Burr conspiracy, 
makes himself ridiculous ia this ruling. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 223 

Mr. Lyon continued : " He did not wish to rescind the rule, 
he said, only so much of it as obliged the House to attend. 
This, he said, was no trifling with him, he should have as great 
an objection to attend this business, as a Quaker would to 
make his obeisance to a magistrate. (The Speaker said he 
must move to rescind the rule, or that he himself be excused, 
no other motion was in order.) Then, he said, he must con- 
fine himself to the narrow grounds of himself. He had no 
objection to gentlemen of high blood carrying this address. 
He had no pretensions to high blood, though he thought he had 
as good blood as any of them, as he was born of a fine, hale, 
healthy woman. Before yesterday he never heard of gentle- 
men boasting of their blood in that House He could not say, 
it was true, that he was descended from the bastards of Oliver 
Cromwell, or his courtiers, or from the Puritans who punished 
their horses for breaking the Sabbath, or from those who per- 
secuted the Quakers, or hanged the witches. He could, how- 
ever, say that this was his country, because he had no other; 
and he owned a share of it, which he had bought by means of 
honest industry; he had fought for his country. In every day 
of trouble he had repaired to her standard, and had conquered 
under it. Conquest had led his country to independence, and 
being independent, he called no man's blood in question."^ 

This speech caused a sensation in the House. Mr, Allen 
discovered that the Irish born gentleman from Vermont knew 
how to answer his remarks in relation to " American blood " 
and " American accent," in vigorous, penetrable English. 



6 Annals of Congress, Vth Cong., 1797, Vol. I, pp. 234-5. 



224 MATTHEW LYON 

From that moment the high-flyers among the Federalists de- 
termined to get up the hue and cry against Colonel Lyon, and 
reduce him to silence and submission. They little suspected 
how hard it would prove. 

The report in the Annals concludes as follows : 

" Mr. Dana observed that the House would not wish to do 
violence to the gentleman's feelings. It was true some of the 
most respectable men in the United States had waited upon 
the President in a similar way; yet if the gentleman thought it 
would not comport with his own dignity to do it, he hoped he 
would be excused. The motion to excuse him was put and 
carried unanimously." 

In Porcupine's report the following is added: "Mr. Otis 
said, as the Lyon appeared to be in a savage mood, he would 
recommend him to be locked up while the House proceeded 
to the President. (He was loudly called to order from several 
parts of the House.")" 

Little Judge Chipman, the Senator from Vermont, was very 
industrious about this time. The excitement of the Federal- 
ists over Matthew Lyon's manly speech, gave Chipman a 
favorable opportunity to " feed fat the ancient grudge " he bore 
him. Lyon afterwards traced to Chipman the spreading 
abroad at Philadelphia of petty calumnies against him, long 
since exploded in Vermont, and made him admit it under oath. 
" At Rutland I was in company," deposed Judge Chipman, 
" with Mr. Lyon and two gentlemen of the Supreme Court, 
and some gentlemen of the bar, at our private quarters. In 
the conversation between Mr. Lyon and myself, my expression 
was: If he did not expect that this ridiculous speech in Con- 

«" Porcupine's Works," VI, 170-1 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 22$ 

gress, relative to the address, would bring up the wooden 
sword? I mentioned in Philadelphia the conversation with 
Mr. Lyon in a company one evening. I believe Mr. Griswold 
was present. I think it probable I have also related the con- 
versation which I had with Mr. Lyon at Rutland, more than 
once in this city." « 

That which Judge Chipman called a " ridiculous speech " 
was not so considered by Mr. Jefferson. One of the first acts 
of the latter when he became President was to secure the 
abolition of the custom of royal visits between the Executive 
and Congress, and no more Congressional pageants to the 
White House from that day to this have been seen in the 
streets of Washington. Matthew Lyon had hit them off well 
as " a boyish piece of business." 

In reference to the wooden sword story Judge Chipman also 
stated in his deposition as follows : " Colonel Lyon observed 
that if anyone at Philadelphia, or if any member of Congress 
should insult him with it, or pretend to mention it to him, it 
should not pass with impunity." Was it not singular, did it 
not look like a preconcerted scheme, that the very man to 
whom Chipman related that false and contemptible story, 
should be the one that some time after taunted Lyon with the 
insulting charge on the floor of Congress? Roger Griswold 
asked him whether he meant to wear his wooden sword when 
he next went into Connecticut, asked the question in the pres- 
ence of the Speaker of the House and several other members 
of Congress, all of whom heard it. Burning with indignation. 



o Deposition of Senator Chipman before the Committee of Privileges 
of the House of Representatives at Philadelphia, Feb. 6, 1798. Annals 
of Congress, 1 797-1 799, pp. 1023- 1024. 



226 MATTHEW LYON 

but mindful of his surroundings, for the scene took place on 
the fioor of Congress during a lull in the proceedings but be- 
fore adjournment, Colonel Lyon pretended not to hear Gris- 
wold, and turned his head in another direction, continuing his 
conversation with the Speaker and the others, in which he had 
been previously engaged. But the young man Griswold was 
not to be denied, he was fifteen years younger than Lyon, and 
so he remarked to Congressman Brooks " he does not hear 
me," got up from his seat, walked over to Matthew Lyon, 
pulled him by the arm, and repeated his infamous and degrad- 
ing question. Is it any wonder when thus goaded that Mat- 
thew Lyon turned upon his tormentor and spat in his face? 
Judge Linton Stephens once did the same thing with a man 
who had maltreated in a ruffianly manner his emaciated 
brother, the illustrious Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia. 
There are other noted cases where men of spirit in situations 
which precluded corporal chastisement of the offenders have 
resorted under extreme provocation to the same mode of pun- 
ishment. 

My Lord Chesterfield might not have done it, but Ethan 
Allen or Seth Warner, Andrew Jackson or Phil Sheridan very 
probably would have done it in like circumstances. At all 
events, Matthew Lyon did do it, and the whole pack of Federal 
hounds went on the trail of the Lyon of Vermont, and soon 
had him at bay. A very unexpected witness in Lyon's favor 
was the Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green, who had defeated another 
popular churchman, Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, in the 
election for Chaplain of the House. Dr. Green says, while he 
objected to see his own face in a picture of the fight, neverthe- 
less that the Federalists were unable to expel Lyon because he 



IHE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 22/ 

was the assailed party, and was only defending himself from 
being made a butt of ridicule by Griswold." 

The affair took place on Tuesday the 30th of January, 1798. 
Forthwith on the same day, Samuel Sewell of Massachusetts 
offered this resolution: "Resolved, That Matthew Lyon, a 
member of the House, for a violent attack, and gross indecency 
committed upon the person of Roger Griswold, another mem- 
ber, in the presence of this House, whilst sitting, be, for this 
disorderly behaviour, expelled therefrom." A Committee of 
Privileges was appointed with power to investigate the entire 
affair, to sit during the session, and to report to the House. 
The Committee were Messrs. Pinckney, Venable, Kittera, 
Isaac Parker, R. Williams, Cochran and Dent. Mr. Pinckney, 
the Chairman, fell sick, and Mr. John Rutledge, Jr., was ap- 
pointed in his place. And now the affair was worked up with 
all the sensational adjuncts which declamation, mock heroics, 
partisan rage and hope to oust a Democrat and win a seat for 
a Federalist could inspire in the dominant party, " Young 
Rutledge joining Smith and Harper," says Jefferson in a letter 
to Madison, " is an ominous fact as to that whole interest."^ 
Such scenes have become familiar to us since that day, but this 
case has no parallel for vituperation and rancor. Outside the 
House the excitement spread, but the country took the humor- 
ous view of it with better sense of perspective. Wits and wit- 
lings poured their effusions through the columns of the papers 
and in broadsides along the town. " Spitting Matt," and 
" Roger, the Knight of the Rheumful Countenance," in Federal 
doggerel and Democratic ballad, went broadcast over the land. 

o " Life of Rev. Ashbel Green," p. 267. 
» " Jefferson's Works," IV, 180. 



228 MATTHEW LYON 

Brush and pencil, picture and caricature, added much to the 
hilarity, and Matthew Lyon shortly became the best known 
man in the country. Mr. Griswold didn't get his second wind 
for over two weeks, and then he went to McAlister's store on 
Chestnut street and bought the biggest yellow stick on sale. 
Armed with this cane or bludgeon, he repaired to the House on 
Thursday, the 15th of February, and coming on Colonel Lyon 
unawares, who was seated at his desk, began to beat him about 
the head and shoulders unmercifully, in the presence of the 
whole Congress, with Mr. Speaker in the chair quietly egging 
him on. It was commented on at the time that the Speaker 
forgot all about calling to order or trifles of that sort, until 
Lyon got the tongs and began to give thump for thump, when 
down the combatants came on the floor, and members rushed 
between and parted them, and down Mr. Speaker came with 
his objections for the first time since the beginning of the game, 
not in the shape of a call to order, but objections to Griswold's 
legs being taken hold of by the peacemakers. " What! " said 
he, "Take hold of a man by the legs! That is no way to take 
hold of him." In his testimony, Mr. Gillespie, a member from 
North Carolina, stated " that Mr. Lyon expressed disapproba- 
tion at being parted, and said as he was rising, ' I wish I had 
been let alone awhile.' " 

The Speaker was Jonathan Dayton, afterwards engaged in 
the Burr conspiracy, and fair play or foul play, he wanted Lyon 
licked. " I appeal," said he, " to the breast of every honorable 
gentleman whether the members of that House would consent 
to sit in amity with such a man."° Lyon's reply is not 



^Annals of Vth Congress, p. 1004. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 229 

recorded, but was doubtless to the point, as the Speaker had 
before found him ready at retort. 

I reproduce here a cartoon of the fight from an original print 
of that day which was thought the cleverest bit of caricature 
of the whole vast quantity of run mad art then let loose. 
Shades of likeness to the men are found in it, according to con- 
temporary testimony. I have a fine picture of the amiable 
Chaplain, afterwards President of Princeton, Rev. Ashbel 
Green, and certainly can detect points of resemblance, dis- 
paraging and exaggerated but still a remote likeness, between 
the cartoon and the real engraving. 

Speaking of Matthew Lyon, Mr. L. E. Chittenden of New 
York, said in a letter to the author, February 3, 1881, '" Those 
who knew him assure me that he is easily recognizable in the 
picture of the fight with Griswold, but of course the picture is 
an exaggeration." 

February 3, 1798, Gallatin in a letter to his wife said: " The 
dispute between Griswold and Lyon shows you what asperity 
has taken place between members of Congress. The facts you 
now know from the accounts in the papers, the report of the 
committee and Lyon's defense in this morning's Aurora. I 
must only add that there is but little delicacy in the usual con- 
versation of most Connecticut gentlemen; that they have con- 
tracted a habit of saying very hard things, and that consider- 
ing" Lyon as a low-life fellow,® they were under no restraint in 
regard to him. No man can blame Lyon for having resented 
the insult. All must agree in reprobating the mode he 
selected to show his resentment, and the place where the act 

a Gallatin and his wife did not so consider him, as they soon became 
warm friends of Colonel Lyon. 



230 MATTHEW LYON 

was committed. As two-thirds are necessary to expel, he will 
not, I beheve, be expelled, but probably be reprimanded at the 
bar by the Speaker."" 

Mr. Henry Adams, the first of his family in whose writings 
I have observed a word of temperate treatment of Colonel 
Lyon, says, after the combatants were pulled apart by the legs, 
" they went on to endanger the personal safety of members by 
striking at each other with sticks in the lobbies and about the 
House at intervals through the day, until at last Mr. H. G. 
Otis succeeded in procuring the intervention of the House to 
compel a suspension of hostilities. Lyon, though a very 
rough specimen of Democracy " (the Adams blood was be- 
ginning to mount here, but he restrains himself and adds,) " he 
was by no means a contemptible man, and, politics aside, 
showed energy and character in his subsequent career."** 

Gallatin to his wife, February 8, says: " We are still hunting 
the Lyon, and it is indeed the most unpleasant and unprofit- 
able business that ever a respectable representative body did 
pursue." February 13th again he reverts to the subject: "Are 
you as tired of modem Congressional debates as I am? I sus- 
pect you wish your husband had no share in them, and was in 
New York instead of attending the farcical exhibition which 
has taken place here this last week; and indeed my beloved 
Hannah is not mistaken. I feel as I always do when absent 
from her, more anxious to be with her than about anything 
else; but in addition to that general feeling, I am really dis- 
gusted at the turn of public debates, and if nothing but such 
subjects was to attract our attention, it must be the desire of 



o " Life of Gallatin," pp. 192-3. 
* Ibid., p. 192. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 2^1 

every man of sense to be out of such a body. The affectation 
of deHcacy, the horror expressed against iUiberal imputations 
and vulgar language in the mouth of an Otis or a Brooks, were 
sufficiently ridiculous; but when I saw the most modest, the 
most decent, the most delicate man, I will not say in Congress, 
but that I ever met in private conversation, when I saw Mr. 
Nicholas alone dare to extenuate the indecency of the act com- 
piitted by Lyon, and then I saw at the same time Colonel 
Parker tremblingly alive to the least indelicate and vulgar ex- 
pression of the Vermonter, vote in favor of his expulsion, I 
thought the business went beyond forbearance, and the whole 
of the proceeding to be nothing more than an affected cant of 
pretended delicacy, or the offspring of bitter party spirit."*^ 

The bitterness of feeling surpassed all former displays in the 
clash of factions. Jefferson mentions something of this in a 
letter to Edward Rutledge: " Philadelphia, June 24, 1797. 
You and I have formerly seen warm debates and high political 
passions, but gentlemen of different politics would then speak 
to eacJi other, and separate the business of the Senate from that 
of society. It is not so now. Men who have been intimate 
all their lives, cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their 
heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch their 
hats. This may do for young men with whom passion is en- 
joyment, but it is afflicting to peaceable minds. Tranquillity is 
the old man's milk. I go to enjoy it in a few days, and to ex- 
change the war and tumult of bulls and bears for the prattle of 
my grandchildren and senile rest."^ 

In a letter to James Madison, dated Philadelphia, February 



«/fctd., pp. 192-3. 

*»" Jefferson's Works," IV, 191 -2. 



232 MATTHEW LYON 

I5» 1798, Jefferson says: " You will have seen the disgusting 
proceedings in the case of Lyon ; if they would have accepted 
even of a commitment to the sergeant, it might have been had. 
But to get rid of his vote was the most material object. These 
proceedings must degrade the General Government and lead 
the people to lean more on their State Governments, which 
have been sunk under the early popularity of the former."* 
The extremists swept the conservatists along with them by 
violence and browbeating, and men like Pinckney and Harper, 
noted before for their polished manners, became scolds only 
less disreputable than Dayton and Dana. " Mr. Pinckney," 
says Jefferson, in a letter to Madison under date of March 29, 
1798, " in the affair of Lyon and Griswold went far beyond 
that moderation he has on other occasions recommended."** 
The remark of Colonel Lyon in his conversation with Speaker 
Dayton that the people of Connecticut were attached to Re- 
publican principles, and that by going among them, as he knew 
them well, he would be able to convince them that their present 
leaders were misleading them, shortly received emphatic con- 
firmation in a letter to Edmund Pendleton from Mr. Jefferson. 
" Philadelphia, April 2, 1798. A wonderful stir is com- 
mencing in the Eastern States. The dirty business of Lyon 
and Griswold was of a nature to fly through the newspapers, 
both Whig and Tory, and to excite the attention of all classes. 
It, of course, carried to their attention, at the same time, the 
debates out of which that affair springs. The subject of these 
debates was, whether the representatives of the people were to 
have no check on the expenditure of the public money, and the 

''Ibid., IV, 211. 
^Ibid., IV, 227. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 233 

Executive to squander it at their will, leaving to the Legisla- 
ture only the drudgery of furnishing the money. They begin 
to open their eyes on this to the eastward, and to suspect they 
have been hoodwinked. Two or three Whig presses have set 
up in Massachusetts, and as many more in Connecticut." " 

Matthew Lyon's boldness had set the ball in motion, and 
printer's ink began to scatter the seed of the renaissance ; — Jef- 
ferson like Byron believed in the efficacy of the pen. The poet 
says: 

" But words are things, and a small drop of ink, 
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces 
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." 

It was a matter of frequent remark at the time that Gris- 
wold's courage was small, scarcely discernible, and his willing- 
ness to transfer his quarrels to others excessive and very mani- 
fest. Provoking a conflict and declining it when joined, in- 
sulted ignominiously and not lifting a finger to resent the in- 
sult, and that too in an age when unfortunately among gentle- 
men the code duello was everywhere recognized and enforced, 
Roger Griswold came out of his first encounter with Lyon in 
a very damaged condition on the score of genuine courage. 
His inconsequential meekness was suggestive of Shylock when 
Antonio spat upon his Jewish gabardine, or of FalstafF when 
brought to bay by the Douglas, and the fat man falls down as if 
dead, with the sage reflection that " the better part of valor is 
discretion." Mr. Madison seemed to take this view of the 
doughty Connecticut warrior, and while agreeing with Gallatin 
and Jefferson that the main object of the Federalists was to 
get rid of Lyon's vote in the House, the father of the Constitu- 

o " Jefferson's Works," IV, 229. 



234 MATTHEW LYON 

tion flouts Griswold as a man of the sword, quite unworthy of 
Congressional vindication. 

" The affair of Lyon and Griswold," said Madison, in a letter 
to Mr. Jefferson, written in February, 1798, " is bad enough 
every way, but worst of all in becoming a topic of tedious and 
disgraceful debates in Congress. There certainly could be no 
necessity for removing it from the decision of the parties them- 
selves before that tribunal, and its removal was evidently a 
sacrifice of the dignity of the latter to the party manoeuvre of 
ruining a man whose popularity and activity were feared. If 
the state of the House suspended its rules in general, it was 
under no obligation to see any irregularity which did not force 
itself into public notice; and if Griswold be a man of the sword, 
he should not have permitted the step to be taken; if not, he 
does not deserve to be avenged by the House. No man ought 
to reproach another with cowardice who is not ready to give 
proof of his own courage."" 

When Griswold, armed with his big stick, broke out on a 
rampage in a crowded House, attacked without risk to himself 
a defenseless man seated at his desk and unavv-are of the ap- 
proach of his assailant, and beat his victim, before he could get 
up to defend himself, with all the strength and premeditated 
cowardice at his command, as if he wanted to stretch him 
senseless if not dead at his feet, what did this self-righteous 
Congress do about it? Just nothing at all. Expel Griswold? 
No, they did not even censure him. Well might Mr. Madison 
when he heard of the cowardly assault, write to Mr. Jefferson 
and say: " I am curious to see how the zealots for expelling 
Lyon will treat the deliberate riot of Griswold. The whole 

o " Letters and Other Writings of James Madison," II, 127-8. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 235 

affair has been extremely disgraceful, but the dignity of the 
body will be wounded, not by the misconduct of individual 
members, which no public body ought to be answerable for, 
but by the misconduct of itself, that is, of a majority; and it is 
to be feared that the majority in this case are ready for every 
sacrifice to the spirit of party which infatuates them. The 
greatest sinners among them are Sewall and Harper, who 
forced the offensive business on the House."* 

Archibald Hamilton Rowan, the Irish gentleman whom 
Curran had defended, was at this time on a visit to the United 
States. " The House of Congress," wrote Mr. Rowan to his 
wife, " is becoming a boxing school; the Speaker giving chal- 
lenges from the chair, and when taken up in private, putting 
the matter ' ad referendum ' till the end of the session. If this 
is a specimen of a democratic republic, Lord help us sufferers 
in the cause ! "^ Speaker Dayton insulted Colonel Lyon very 
grossly in the House. The latter made no public reply. Per- 
haps Mr. Rowan's words, " taken up in private," may mean 
that Colonel Lyon called down the Speaker outside the House. 
It was just Hke him to do it. No bully ever insulted him with 
impunity. 

But let me now give the curious reader of our early Con- 
gressional annals a more detailed narrative of the famous 
Lyon-Griswold fight, and I cannot do this more graphically 
than by calHng to the witness stand some of the editors of the 
papers of that day, of the " Aurora," " Porcupine's Gazette," 
etc., and some of the witnesses who testified before the Con- 
gressional committee while the first fervor and rapture of the 



a Ibid., II, 129-30. 

^ " A. H. Rowan's Autobiography," p. 321. 



236 MATTHEW LYON 

Strife were still swaying their minds, and letting them all speak 
for themselves in their own fiery and impassioned words. 

Congress at that time met in Philadelphia in a house at the 
southeast corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets, used also as a 
District and Quarter Sessions Court of that city. The House 
occupied the first floor rear, and the Senate the back room of 
the second story. 

From the " Aurora," January 31, 1798 (abridged): 
" The House of Representatives was engaged in balloting 
for managers to conduct the impeachment before the Senate of 
Senator Blount of North Carolina, the Speaker being out of 
the chair. Just before the adjournment Mr. Griswold and Mr. 
Lyon being outside of the bar, the former made some allusion 
to a story circulated in some of the Eastern States that Mr. 
Lyon had been obliged to wear a wooden sword for cowardice 
in the field. Upon this Mr. Lyon spit in Mr. Griswold's face. 
— Mr. Sewall desired that the galleries might be cleared, and 
when the doors were closed he moved that Mr. Lyon be ex- 
pelled. The House ordered the doors to be opened, and the 
subject was then referred to the Committee on Privileges. 
The Committee soon reported to the effect that if either of the 
members offered any violence to the other before a final de- 
cision of the House, he should be considered guilty of a high 
breach of privilege." 

Further accounts from the " Aurora " (abridged) : 
" On the I St of February a letter from Mr. Lyon to the 
Speaker was read, in which he disclaimed any intentional dis- 
respect to the House. On the following day the Committee 
of Privileges reported the facts of the case to the House, and 
recommended the passage of a resolution for Mr. Lyon's ex- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 237 

pulsion. The debate upon this report continued until the 12th 
of February, when the vote upon the question of expulsion was 
taken, and stood ayes 52, nays 44. A vote of two-thirds being 
constitutionally required to effect an expulsion, the motion was 
lost. 

" Of the affair of January 30th a caricature is in existence 
representing Mr. Lyon as a lion standing on its hind legs and 
having a man's head in profile. A wooden sword is hanging 
by his side. Griswold, whose name admitted of no pun, is 
holding a handkerchief in his hand, and exclaiming ' What a 
beastly action.' " 

From the "Aurora" of February i6, 1798: 

" Yesterday, after prayers, nearly half an hour after the time 
to which the House had adjourned, and after the Speaker had 
taken the chair, Mr. Lyon was sitting in his seat (which is the 
center of a row of desks) with his hat off and inclining forward 
with his eyes on a paper before him. Mr. Griswold left his 
seat with a stout hickory club, came up to Mr. Lyon on his 
right front, and without warning struck him once and again 
over the head and shoulders before he could rise, and repeated 
his blows, which Mr. Lyon endeavored to ward off with his 
arm, while extricating himself from the surrounding desks and 
chairs. Mr. L. attempting to close in, in order to avoid the 
blows, pushed forward towards the Speaker's chair, Mr. G. 
endeavoring to preserve the distance and repeating his blows. 
Mr. L. at length got hold of the tongs; but after one stroke 
with them, his antagonist closing in, both the tongs and the 
club were dropped, and the two members fell, Mr. G. having 
Mr. L. partly under him. There was no call of order from the 
Speaker all this time. Two members endeavored to take Mr. 



238 MATTHEW LYON 

G, off by pulling him by the legs. The Speaker alleged he 
should be taken off by the shoulders; they were, however, 
separated. A few minutes afterwards Mr. G. was standing in 
that part of the House where water is placed for the use of the 
members. Mr. L. came up to the same place with a cane in 
his hand; as soon as he recognized Mr. G. he struck him with 
his cane — on which Mr. Sitgreaves brought Mr. G. a hickory 
club; but the members interfered. The Speaker then called 
to order and Messrs. L. & G. separated. 

" We are happy to add that Mr. L. is not so much hurt as 
might have been expected from the violence and manner of the 
assault." 

Abridged from a Federal paper of the period: 

" Philadelphia, February 16. Another Fracas in Congress. 

" Yesterday morning immediately after the prayers were 
over, and while the Speaker was in the chair, but before the 
House was called to order, Mr. Griswold, a member from Con- 
necticut, observing Mr. Lyon, of Vermont, in his seat, left the 
chair in which he usually sat and moved diagonally towards 
the table occupied by the Sergeant-at-Arms. He made a mo- 
mentary halt, assumed a fierceness of countenance to which he 
is unaccustomed, grasping at the same time with firmer nerve 
the hickory stick he had in his hand, passed on with three or 
four quick steps, till he came near to Mr. Lyon, when he raised 
his stick and drew a violent stroke across Mr. Lyons head, 
who was sitting uncovered and looking down upon some 
papers upon the desk, which stood between him and Mr. Gris- 
wold. The stroke was so sudden and unexpected that Mr. 
Lyon did not even make an effort by raising up his arms to 
ward off the danger. Mr. G. repeated his stroke before Mr. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 239 

L. could rise from his seat. Mr. L. put his cane between his 
legs when he first sat down, but seemed to have lost it, as he 
pressed forward unarmed to extricate himself from the chairs 
and desks with which he was surrounded. Mr. G. continued 
his assault during the favorable opportunity furnished by Mr. 
L.'s embarrassed situation, and gave several severe strokes, 
one of which visibly staggered him. As soon as Mr. L. had 
got into the open area before the Speaker's chair, he attempted 
to close with Mr. G., but finding this not easily efifected, by the 
wariness of his antagonist, he seemed compelled to seek for 
arms that should put him more on a level with Mr. G. With 
this view he passed on to the nearest fireplace, followed by Mr. 
G. who continued striking. At length Mr. L. seized the fire 
tongs and proceeded to repel Mr. G.'s attack, but in this he 
was prevented by Mr. G. who quickly caught hold of the tongs 
also, and made a thrust with his cane at Mr. L.'s face. The 
combatants now closed and abandoned their weapons; after a 
short struggle they fell side by side on the floor, when several 
other members interposed and separated the combatants. Mr. 
L. immediately expressed a wish that they had been left alone 
to settle the matter in the way Mr. G. had proposed. 

" A few minutes only had intervened when by accident Mr. 
Lyon and Mr. Griswold met at the water table near the south- 
east door. Mr. Griswold was now without any stick and Mr. 
Lyon had a cane in his hand. Their eyes no sooner met than 
'Mr. Lyon sprang to attack Mr. Griswold, who, stepping back, 
in some measure avoided the blow. Mr. G. continued to re- 
treat until another cudgel was put into his hand by Mr. Sit- 
greaves, but on the Speaker and some other members calling 
to order, the business terminated for the present. 



240 MATTHEW LYON 

" Mr. Lyon suffered considerable personal injury from the 
blows he received in the first attack. Mr, Griswold appears 
to have sustained little or no bodily hurt during the whole 
affray." 

From Peter Porcupine's " Gazette," Ultra Federalist, Jan- 
uary 31, 1798: 

" Lyon's Spitting. — A misrepresentation of the transaction 
which happened yesterday in the House of Representatives, 
between Mr. Lyon and Mr. Griswold, having been published 
this morning in the '' Aurora," the following more correct 
statement of the fact is handed to you, to prevent the injury 
which that misrepresentation seems designed to do the charac- 
ter of an injured man. 

" Yesterday in the House of Representatives, while the 
members were balloting for managers to conduct the impeach- 
ment of William Blount, Mr. Lyon, standing by the bar of the 
House, and addressing himself to a circle of which Mr. Gris- 
wold was one, made the following observations, ' That the rep- 
resentatives to Congress from the State of Connecticut were 
conducting themselves in the House in direct opposition to the 
wishes of their constituents; that they were pursuing their own 
interests, and cared nothing about the public, their object being 
to obtain offices for themselves; and that it mattered not 
whether the office was worth one thousand or nine thousand 
dollars; that the Representatives of the State were administer- 
ing opium to their constituents to lull them asleep; and that if 
he should go into that State and take on himself the manage- 
ment of a printing press for six or twelve months, he could 
effect a revolution, change the whole politics of the State, and 
turn out the present Representatives.' 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 24I 

" On which Mr. Griswold replied to Mr. Lyon that he was 
much mistaken; for he could not produce the effect if he should 
go into Connecticut, or change the opinion of the meanest 
hostler. 

" Mr. Lyon said he knew the temper of the people of Con- 
necticut; he had to fight them in his own district whenever 
they came there. Mr. Griswold asked him whether he fought 
them with a wooden sword? Upon which Mr. Lyon spit in 
Mr. Griswold's face. 

" Mr. Griswold from respect to the House, and being in- 
stantly cautioned by some of his friends, repressed his indigna- 
tion. 

" The public are extremely anxious to know, whether it was 
tobacco juice or natural saliva, that the Hon. Matthew Lyon, 
Esq., squirted into the face of his brother legislator. Next 
after this important point, we Philadelphians all want to have 
out the whole history of the wooden sword. There is certainly 
something at the bottom of this story, that the Honorable 
Member wishes to keep in oblivion. For, let the reader ask 
himself, whether a gentle hint, like that of Mr. Griswold, was 
calculated to awaken resentment in anyone to whom it was not 
applicable, and in whose mind it did not revive something that 
he was very anxious to keep hidden from the world. But I 
pray some one to send me the history of the dagger of lath; 
then we shall have facts, and not reasoning, to judge from. 

" Matthew Lyon came from Ireland. He not long ago 
drank ' Success to the United Irishmen/ then in open rebellion 
against their King, and he spit in the face of an American Mem- 
ber of Congress." 

Let me interrupt Mr. Cobbett's unapproachable strain of 



242 MATTHEW LYON 

scurrility right here, in order to quote another but far inferior 
defamer upon Mr. Jefferson. Carpenter scoured the land in 
his search for slanders against the founder of the Democratic 
party, and quotes the following toast offered by Jefferson, then 
Vice-President, at a meeting in Charlottesville, Va., as an ad- 
ditional token of reproach: 

" Ireland, may she soon burst her fetters, and take her rank 
among the free republics of the earth."" I resume Cobbett, 
for the reader must not be deprived of Porcupine's superb 
mendacities. 

" Lyon. Yesterday the House of Representatives came to 
a decision on the filthy conduct of this spitting hero. An 
amendment was proposed by the supporters of Mr. Lyon (for, 
strange as it may seem, supporters he has) the object of which 
was to substitute a reprimand in place of expulsion. This was 
rejected by the gentlemen with disdain. They very truly said, 
that to punish such an odious, such a base offence, in so slight 
a manner, would be infinitely worse than doing nothing at all, 
as it would, in some sort, be giving a sanction to brutaUty. 

" The original resolution for expulsion was then put when 
there appeared 52 for it, and 44 against it ; and as the Constitu- 
tion requires, that, to expel a member there shall be a majority 
of two-thirds, the resolution was lost; and it was determined 
that the man of spittle should, unpunished and uncensured, still 
sit as a member of the Congress, or, as the Abbe de Mably 
calls it, ' the grand Amphyctionic Council of the New World! ' 
Ave Amphyctionia! Would to Heaven the enthusiastic Abbe 
were now alive 1 

" The filthy affair of Lyon as far as relates to the discussiors 

« Carpenter's " Life of JefTerson," II, p. 29B. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 243 

of the House of Representatives, is now over. His supporters, 
his friends, and his equals, though they provoked the examina- 
tion of evidences before the House, were extremely anxious to 
avoid debate on the subject. They wished to keep the thing 
as much as possible hidden from their constituents, as well as 
from the world in general; and it is for this very reason, that I 
have resolved, if it please God to grant me life, to make the 
whole business as notorious as the courage of Alexander, or 
the cruelty of Nero. For this purpose, I will publish in my 
paper, once a fortnight as long as I publish it (if that be for 
fifty years), a sort of record in manner and form following, to 
wit: 

" Be it remembered that in the year of our Lord one thou- 
sand seven hundred and ninety-eight (the close of the ' en- 
lightened eighteenth century '), one Matthew Lyon, an Irish- 
man, and a furious Democrat, was sent to Philadelphia by the 
enlightened republicans of Vermont, to represent them in the 
Congress there assembled. That on the 30th day of January 
in the enlightened year aforesaid, the said Lyon did, in the Con- 
gress Hall, while the House was in actual session, spit the 
nauseous slime from his jaws into the face of Roger Griswold, 
a member from Connecticut. And further, that the said Lyon, 
in justifying his said conduct, did (he being then speaking be- 
fore and to the House) utter these words: * * * meaning 
thereby the posteriors, or hinder parts of him the said 
Lyon. 

" In consequence of this decent conduct and polite language, 
so highly honorable to democracy, and to the enlightened cen- 
tury aforesaid, a resolution was offered for expelling the said 
spitter from the House. That an inquiry took place, in which 



244 MATTHEW LYON 

it was proven that he, the said Lyon from Vermont, was, dur- 
ing the American war cashiered by General Gates, for desert- 
ing his post. 

" And be it further remembered, that Nicholas of Virginia, 
Williams of North Carolina, Smith of Baltimore, Gallatin of 
Geneva, Livingston of New York, and several others (all of 
them of the Democratic party), did actually make and utter 
speeches in favor of the said Lyon. That the resolution, after 
fourteen days spent thereon, was put to the vote, when there 
appeared fifty-two for expulsion, and forty-four against it; and 
that as the Constitution requires a majority of two-thirds to 
expel a member, the said Lyon, of course, was not expelled, but 
kept his seat in Congress as before. 

" And whereas it is just that the said forty-four men who 
voted in favor of the said Lyon, and by whose means he was 
kept in the said Congress, should be made known to their con- 
stituents and to the universe, and also that the memory of their 
conduct should be perpetuated, and handed down to their 
children, if, perchance, they may have any; to these ends their 
names, with the States they represent, are hereunder enregis- 
tered, to wit : 

Massachusetts — Freeman Pennsylvania — Bard 

Skinner Findley 

Varnum Gallatin 

New York — Elmendorf Gregg 

Havens Hanna 

Livingston McClenahan 

Van Cortlandt Maryland — S. Smith 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 



245 



Maryland — 


Sprigg 


N. Carolina — 


Blount 


Virginia — 


Brent 




Bryan 




Cabel 




Gillespie 




T. Claiborne 




Locke 




Clay 




Macon 




Clopton 




McDowell 




Dawson 




Stanford 




Giles 




R. Williams 




Harrison 


S. Carolina — 


Benton 




Jones 




W. Smith 




New 




Sumter 




Nicholas 


Georgia — 


Baldwin 




A. Trigg 




Milledge 




J. Trigg 


Kentucky — 


Fowler 




Venable 


Tennessee — 


W.Claibome."a 



Two weeks later Cobbett changed his lamentations to rejoic- 
ings. The reader will now find this guardian of the good 
order and dignity of the House suddenly converted into a 
partisan of free fighting on the floor of Congress, and an apolo- 
gist of the most disgraceful scene of rough and tumble pugil- 
ism and disorder, with cudgel and tongs accompaniments, 
which has ever taken place in the House of Representatives 
throughout the entire history of the country. This eloquent 
scold fairly screams his exultation over Griswold's assault. 
From Porcupine's " Gazette," February 16, 1798: 
" A Burning Shame. The affair which took place in Con- 
gress yesterday was but imperfectly related in my ' Gazette ' 
of last night. I shall therefore now endeavor to give it more 
in detail. 

o " Porcupine's Works," by William Cobbett, Vol. VIII, pp. 68-70, 
87-90. 



246 MATTHEW LYON 

" After the House had decided that nothing should be done 
to Lyon for spitting in Mr. Griswold's face, it seems that the 
former had the prudence to avoid the sight of the latter till yes- 
terday, when he came and took his seat. He was sitting alone, 
involved in deep contemplation, when Mr. Griswold first spied 
him. No sooner did this happen than he caught up a thick 
hickory stick, made towards the man of spittle, and, in the 
twinkling of an eye, without giving him time either to eject his 

saliva or say ' My ,' began to belabor him. Poor Lyon 

got out of his seat, made at his assailant, and endeavored to 
grapple with him; but the supple New Englander, who is as 
active as he is strong, beat him from him with his left hand, 
while he thrashed him with the right; and thus did the member 
from Vermont receive a shower of blows, such as never fell on 
the devoted hide of Don Quixote or his continent steed 
Rozinante. You must needs think the man was not very much 
at his ease in this situation. He ran to the fire place and 
catched up a pair of tongs (just like a lady), and attempted to 
use them; but his antagonist presently disarmed him, and con- 
tinued to beat away with as regular a stroke as did the drum- 
mers of General Gates, on a former occasion. At last Lyon 
made shift to close with him, when Mr. Griswold immediately 
kicked him up, and made him measure his length on the floor. 
Here several gentlemen came up and took off the enraged New 
Englander, or it is reasonable to suppose that he would have 
continued to pummel away for some time longer. 

" The poor man of saliva was most dreadfully cut and 
bruised; and had not Nature (foreseeing perhaps this ren- 
counter) taken particular care to fortify his head, it must have 
been smashed to pieces. It is said that several connoiseurs 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 247 

from the West Indies and from the Southward, have declared 
that never negro suffered such a drubbing. 

" Lyon stopped an hour or two to wash and bathe, and then 
retired from the House accompanied by his friend and country- 
man Blair McClenachan. They walked down towards Fourth 
street, followed by a crowd of boys; and would you believe it, 
the naughty little rascals hallooed and shouted, ' There goes 
the Lion and Blair! ' Whatever may be said or thought of the 
rib-roasting, I am persuaded that everyone will agree with me, 
that it is highly disgraceful to the police of Philadelphia, that 
these little blackguards be allowed thus to follow and mock a 
member of Congress, like so many small birds at an owl that 
happens to change her roost by daylight."" 

When writing this choice specimen of billingsgate, Cobbett 
probably forgot all about the Abbe de Mably and the " grand 
Amphyctionic Council of the New World." Griswold had 
turned it into a bear garden. And although when Lyon's mis- 
conduct was the subject of criticism we have seen Peter Porcu- 
pine spreading his quills, and have heard his exclamation 
"Would to Heaven the enthusiastic Abbe were now alive! " 
nevertheless when Griswold's deliberate riot occurred, our 
fickle censor throws the Abbe overboard, and becomes the 
chief fugleman of a Congressional bully and bruiser. 

Two incidents of this fierce fight plainly revealed the charac- 
ter of each man, and therefore call for particular remark. 
When Griswold stealthily approached and assailed Lyon with 
a stout hickory stick, Lyon never flinched, but unarmed as he 
was rose up from his seat, and, even Cobbett admits, he " made 
at his assailant and endeavored to grapple with him." But 

o Ibid., pp. 90-92. 



248 MATTHEW LVON 

after Lyon had regained his ordinary walking cane and met 
Griswold at the water cooler, the latter now being without his 
bludgeon, Lyon advanced and Griswold retreated before him, 
receiving but not turning to repel a stroke over the shoulders 
from Lyon's cane. " Mr. G. continued to retreat," says one of 
the Federal accounts I have quoted, " until another cudgel was 
put in his hand by Mr. Sitgreaves." Courage and cowardice 
have seldom been more sharply contrasted. 

From the Annals of the Fifth Congress.* 
BREACH OF PRIVILEGE. 

" Tuesday, January 30, 1798, 

" Mr. Sewall said he beUeved the business which he had to 
lay before the House would require secrecy, as it was a subject 
which would considerably affect the feelings of the members 
of the House. He therefore moved that the galleries might be 
cleared; which was accordingly done, excepting the members 
and the Clerk. 

" Mr. Sewall then stated, that he had been informed, in a 
manner which left no doubt of the truth of the fact, that in the 
presence of the House whilst sitting, Matthew Lyon, a member 
from the State of Vermont, did this day commit a violent 
attack and gross indecency upon the person of Roger Gris- 
wold, another member of this House; and, in order to bring 
the subject before the House, that he had prepared a resolu- 
tion, which he read in his place, and delivered in at the Clerk's 
table. A question was then taken in the following words: 
Does the matter so communicated require secrecy? 

" This motion passed unanimously in the negative, and the 
galleries were opened. 

* Pp- 955 et seq. to 1067. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 249 

" The House then proceeded to consider the motion made 
by the member from Massachusetts, which was read, as fol- 
lows: 

" ' Resolved, That Matthew Lyon, a member of this House, 
for a violent attack and gross indecency committed upon the 
person of Roger Griswold, another member, in the presence 
of this House, whilst sitting, be, for this disorderly behaviour 
expelled therefrom.' 

" It was moved that this resolution be referred to a com- 
mittee to be denominated a Committee of Privileges, with in- 
structions to inquire into the whole matter of the said resolu- 
tion, and to report the same with their opinion thereon to the 
House. 

" The question was taken by yeas and nays, and decided in 
the affirmative — 49 to 44. 

" Ordered, That Messrs. Pinckney, Venable, Kittera, Isaac 
Parker, R. Williams, Cochran, and Dent, be a committee for 
the purpose. 

" A motion was then made that the House come to the fol- 
lowing resolution: 

" ' Resolved, That this House will consider it a high breach 
of privilege if either of the members shall enter into any per- 
sonal contest until a decision of the House shall be had 
thereon.' 

" A motion was made to add the following words to the end 
thereof: 

" ' And that the said Matthew Lyon be considered in the 
custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms until the further order of the 
House.' 

" The yeas and nays were taken upon this question and de- 
cided in the negative — 29 to 62. 



250 MATTHEW LYON 

" This motion being negatived, the sense of the House was 
then taken on the main question, as originally offered, and it 
was carried. 

"Thursday, February i. 

" BREACH OF PRIVILEGE. 

" Mr. Venable said, he was directed by the Committee of 
Privileges to inform the House, that the Chairman of that 
Committee (Mr, Pinckney) was yesterday taken ill, and was 
unable to attend to the business referred to them; that the com- 
mittee had this morning received a note from Mr. P. stating, 
that he was still too much indisposed to attend to business; 
they, therefore, wished him to ask for the appointment of 
another member in his place. 

" The motion being agreed to, the Speaker nominated Mr. 
Rutledge. 

" Mr. Venable then added, that he was also requested to ask 
leave of the House to sit during the session. Leave was 
granted. 

" The Speaker informed the House that he had received a 
letter from a member from Vermont, which he was requested 
to lay before them. 

"To the Speaker of the House of Representatives: 

" Sir: As the attention of the House of Representatives has 
been called to my conduct in a dispute with Mr. Griswold, on a 
suggestion of its being a violation of the order of the House, 
and the respect due to it from all its members, I feel it in- 
cumbent upon me to obviate the imputation of intentional dis- 
respect. Permit me, sir, through you, to assure the House of 
Representatives that I feel as much as any of its members the 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 25I 

necessity of preserving the utmost decorum in its proceedings; 
that I am incapable of an intentional violation of its rules; and 
that, if, in the present instance, I am chargeable of a disregard 
of them, it is owing wholly to my ignorance of their extent, 
and that the House of Representatives claimed any superinten- 
dence over its members when not formally constituted, 
and when they are not engaged in actual business. If I have 
been mistaken in my understanding on this subject, I beg the 
House to believe that my fault has been without intention, and 
that I am very sorry I have deserved its censure. I am, sir, 
your obedient servant, 

" Matthew Lyon. 
" February i, 1798." 

" Mr. Nicholas moved that the letter be referred to the com- 
mittee who have this subject under consideration. Agreed to. 

" Friday, February 2. 

" Mr. Venable, from the Committee of Privileges, made the 
following report. 

" The Committee of Privileges, to whom was referred a reso- 
lution on the 30th of January, charging Matthew Lyon with 
disorderly behavior, with instructions to inquire into the whole 
matter thereof, and to report the same, with their opinion, to 
the House, having examined several witnesses on oath touch- 
ing the subject, report: That, during the sitting of the House 
of Representatives on the 30th day of January, 1798, the tellers 
of the House being engaged in counting the ballots for 
managers of the impeachment against William Blount, the 
Speaker had left his chair, and many members their seats, as is 
usual on such occasions; the Speaker was sitting in one of the 
member's seats, next to the bar of the House, and several mem- 
bers near him, of whom Mr. Griswold was one. 



252 MATTHEW LYON 

" Mr. Lyon was standing without the bar of the House, lean- 
ing on the same, and holding a conversation with the Speaker. 
He spoke loud enough to be heard by all those who were near 
him, as if he intended to be heard by them. The subject of his 
conversation was, the conduct of the Representatives of 
the State of Connecticut, (of whom Mr. Griswold was one). 
Mr. Lyon declared that they acted in opposition to the inter- 
ests and opinions of nine-tenths of their constituents; and they 
were pursuing their own private views, without regarding the 
interests of the people; that they were seeking offices, which 
they were willing to accept whether yielding $9,000 or $1,000. 
He further observed that the people of that State were blinded 
or deceived by those Representatives ; that they were permitted 
to see but one side of the question in politics, being lulled 
asleep by the opiates which the members from that State ad- 
ministered to them; with other expressions equally tending to 
derogate from the political integrity of the Representatives of 
Connecticut. 

" On Mr. Lyon's observing, that if he should go into Con- 
necticut, and manage a press there six months, although the 
people of that State were not fond of revolutionary principles, 
he could effect a revolution, and turn out the present Represen- 
tatives. Mr. Griswold replied to these remarks, and amongst 
other things, said, " If you go into Connecticut, you had better 
wear your v^^ooden sword," or words to that effect, alluding to 
Mr. Lyon's having been cashiered in the army. 

" Mr. Lyon did not notice the allusion at this time, but con- 
tinued the conversation on the same subject. Mr. Griswold 
then left his seat, and stood next to Mr. Lyon, leaning on the 
bar, being outside the same. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 253 

" On Mr. Lyon's saying he knew the people of Connecticut 
well, having lived among them many years — that he had fre- 
quent occasion to fight them in his own district, and that he 
never failed to convince them — Mr. Griswold asked if he 
fought them with his wooden sword, on which Mr. Lyon spat 
in his face. 

" The committee having attentively considered the foregoing 
statement of facts, and having heard Mr, Lyon in his defence, 
are of the opinion that his conduct in this transaction was 
highly indecorous, and unworthy of a member of this House. 

" They, therefore, recommend the adoption of the resolution 
submitted to their consideration by the House, in the words 
following, to wit : 

" ' Resolved, That Matthew Lyon, a member of this House, 
for a violent attack and gross indecency committed upon the 
person of Roger Griswold, another member, in the presence of 
the House while sitting, be for this disorderly behavior ex- 
pelled therefrom.' 

" The report having been read, 

" Mr. Lyon said, he did not think the evidence was stated in 
its full extent in this report. He wished, therefore, before the 
House proceeded in the business, they would hear the evidence 
themselves. 

" Mr. Harper inquired of the Speaker whether that was the 
usual mode of proceeding? 

" Mr. Speaker said, it was necessary first to take up the re- 
port for a second reading. 

" Mr. Macon observed that this was a very delicate and a 
very serious question, as it related to one of the members of 
that House, and as it respected the dignity of the House itself. 



254 MATTHEW LYON 

He hoped, therefore, the report would be printed, that some 
time would be given to consider it, and that the House would 
themselves hear the testimony. The punishment which the 
report proposed was equal to death itself. He hoped, there- 
fore, it would not be acted upon hastily, but made the order for 
the day for Monday. 

" Mr. Harper did not wish to press the business in an im- 
proper manner, as it was certainly of great importance to a 
member of that House, to the House itself, and to the dignity 
of the country. It was usual to have all reports of any con- 
sequence printed, and a day or two given for consideration. 
He was not himself desirous of delay, as he was at present 
ready to vote upon the question; but, if other members wished 
it, he should not object to the motion proposed by the gentle- 
man from North Carolina. 

" Mr. Nicholas took it for granted, that, whenever this sub- 
ject came up, the House would think it necessary to go into an 
examination of the witnesses themselves, and not rely upon the 
manner in which their testimony had struck others. He 
thought it would be best, therefore, whilst the report was print- 
ing, to go on in the examination of witnesses. 

" The question for postponing till Monday was put and 

carried. 

*' Monday, February 5. 

" Mr. Sewall moved the House to take up the report of the 
Committee of Privileges, in order that it might be committed 
to a Committee of the Whole. 

" The Chairman informed the Committee that the judge of 
the District Court was in the House. 

" Judge Peters was accordingly called upon. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 255 

" Mr. Rutledge desired an oath might be administered to 
the Speaker, Messrs. S. Smith, Brooks, Hosmer, Coit, Dana 
Goodrich and Champlin; which was accordingly done. 

" Thursday, February 6. 

" Mr. Lyon understood General Sumter, from South Caro- 
lina, could give some information to the committee; he re- 
quested, therefore, he might be sworn. 

" Mr. Sumter declared he knew nothing of the business, ex- 
cept what he had heard from Mr. Lyon soon after the aflFair 
happened. 

" It was at length agreed that that precise question should be 
put to Mr. Sumter, viz : 'Whether Mr. Lyon told him that he 
heard Mr. Griswold address him twice on the subject of the 
wooden sword?' which Mr. Sumter answered in the affirma- 
tive. 

" Thursday, February 8. 

" Mr. Lyon then rose and spoke as follows: 

"Mr. Chairman: I feel myself extraordinarily circum- 
stanced, and accidentally drawn into a very serious situation, 
merely by my ignorance of the House of Representatives being 
likely to take cognizance of an affair that happened when the 
members of the House were at their amusement and recrea- 
tion; when every one was doing that which was right in his 
own eyes. How much I was supported in this opinion by the 
conduct of the Speaker, every gentleman may see by his testi- 
mony. He sat in a chair within the bar facing me as I stood 
without it. He spoke to me of my country, and the conduct 
of some people there concerning the stamp act; it appears I 
turned the conversation towards Connecticut; it appears I had 
four or live other gentlemen's wit and raillery to bear, and this 



256 MATTHEW LYON 

in the hearing of the Speaker. Does this look like the House 
being sitting? 

" How could I imagine this House was sitting, when the 
Speaker suffered me to be interrupted when speaking to him, 
by the remarks and jokes of four or five gentlemen? 

" How could I imagine the House was sitting, when the 
Speaker was joking me about an embassy to Kamtschatka 
among the fur tribe? 

" How could I imagine the House was sitting, when I heard, 
and knew the Speaker heard, Mr. Griswold insult me, without 
checking him? 

" How could I imagine the House to be sitting, when the 
Speaker suffered Mr. Griswold to proceed a second time with 
the most provoking insolence? 

" Had the House been sitting, I should not have been called 
on by Mr. Dana, with respect to something Mr. Williams had 
said; consequently I should not have entered into a conversa- 
tion about Connecticut ; the Speaker would not have spoken to 
me of Vermont, and I should not again have turned the subject 
to Connecticut, and Mr. Griswold would have postponed his 
premeditated insult — premeditated, I say, because it has been 
proved that he had notice of my feelings and my determination 
on this subject. 

" Is it proper to say the House was sitting, while half the 
members were standing round the table, while two-thirds of the 
other half were walking round the bar, the Speaker engaged in 
jocular conversation or writing letters? 

" But, Mr. Chairman, it seems, by the course this business 
has taken in the committee, that I am to be criminated for 
holding an indelicate or impolite conversation within the hear- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 257 

ing of the gentlemen from Connecticut. Every one knows 
that there are two different opinions entertained in this country 
with respect to the management of the Government, and every 
one who knows me, knows that I am very free in speaking my 
opinion on these subjects. There are many, and I believe 
some in this House who know something of the rough, illiberal 
manner in which I have been treated in the New England 
newspapers, on account of my political opinions ; and I believe 
there are many persons in this House who are well acquainted 
with the kind of politeness which the gentlemen from Con- 
necticut make use of towards their opponents; and some are 
acquainted with the share of politeness which those gentlemen 
deserve from me. 

" If the House are at a loss on this subject, they will, I hope, 
recur to the language made use of by Mr. Coit and Mr. Dana, 
in their testimony; and the House, I believe, will recollect a 
speech from a gentleman who sits behind me, in which he told 
the committee twice or three times that I was no gentleman. 

" Again, I say, Mr. Chairman, I am very extraordinarily 
situated. Evidence has been introduced into this House to 
induce the members to believe that I left Colonel Warner's 
regiment with dishonor; that I am a person of disrepute; that 
I have been in the habit of receiving insult with impunity. 
Here I am, three hundred and fifty miles from home, and from 
the evidence who are able to show the contrary. Had I a 
reasonable opportunity, I could prove, by the Lieutenant- 
Colonel, who is now General Safford, and several other officers 
of that regiment, that when I left it, I left it with the regret of 
much of the greater part of the officers and all the soldiers — I 
mention the Lieutenant-Colonel because Colonel Warner is 



258 MATTHEW LYON 

not living. My certificate of having settled my accounts, 
which is at home, would prove my having done my duty well. 

" I could prove my having taken my musket and marched to 
the lines every day, during the siege of Burgoyne. I should 
not have mentioned this circumstnce, had not the Speaker 
mentioned his having done so when Paymaster. 

" I could also prove, that when an officer offered me an in- 
sult, I chastised him before the officers of that regiment. 

" (Mr. Champlin asked whether the gentleman said he had 
chastised an officer, or would chastise him? 

" Mr. Lyon answered that he had chastised him.) 

" I could prove that I took the commission in Colonel War- 
ner's regiment when I was driven from my plantation by Bur- 
goyne's invasion ; that I resigned my appointment, and left the 
regiment for the care of my family, for preferment, for honor, 
for superior office, and to serve the people of the State of Ver- 
mont. 

" I could prove, had I opportunity, that I was immediately 
appointed Deputy Secretary of the State, Paymaster of the 
troops of Vermont, assistant to the Treasurer, assistant to the 
Commissioner of Loans, and Captain of the Militia, besides 
being called on to act as Private Secretary to the Governor. 

" I could also prove that within two years from the time of 
that resignation, I was appointed Secretary to the Governor 
and Council, a Member of the Legislature, Clerk of the House 
of Assembly, one of a Committee for the Collection and Revis- 
ion of Laws, and to a number of other offices under the 
authority of that State, besides a considerable number of 
offices in the municipal establishment of the town in which I 
lived, as well as my promotion to the command of a regiment. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 259 

and all this before I formed a connexion with one of the most 
respectable families in that State. I could prove also, that I 
have been a member of the Legislature of Vermont, except two 
years, ever since; that I have been appointed to many other 
offices in which I did not think proper to serve, such as Audi- 
' tor of the Treasurer's Accounts, and Judge of the county where 
I live, 

" By these things, and by my standing in this House, I could 
prove that I have always been respected in the country I repre- 
sent, and where I have lived these twenty-four years. 

" The free electors of my district have given me a preference 
to a gentleman of very great respectability, one who has served 
six years with unimpeachable fidelity in this House, and is now 
Chief Justice of the State of Vermont; yet evidence has been 
adduced in order to show that I am a person of disrepute. 

" As to my being in the habit of receiving insult with im- 
punity — for which it seems Mr. Qiipman's testimony was in- 
troduced — were I allowed to call testimony from Vermont, I 
could very easily prove so much on this head, as, perhaps, to 
prove, in the minds of some gentlemen, that respectability 
which, in every other respect, attaches to my character. 
Among other things I could prove that the gentleman from 
J Vermont who was called to give testimony against me, has, 
with the politeness peculiar to a certain country which I will 
not now name, insulted me and received due chastisement for 
it. 

" Mr. Harper called to order. The gentleman from Ver- 
mont had already spoken very improperly of witnesses, and he 
now spoke in a very reprehensible way of Mr. Chipman. He 
hoped he would be admonished. 



260 MATTHEW LYON 

" Mr. Otis differed in opinion from the gentleman from 
South CaroHna. 

" If the gentleman thought it would be of service to him to 
inform the committee that he had chastised an officer in the 
face of his regiment, or beaten a Judge of the Supreme Court, 
he was right in stating the circumstances. 

" Mr. Lyon. It would be folly in me to state anything to 
this committee that I cannot prove. Nor should I have men- 
tioned that circumstance, had I not been charged with receiv- 
ing injuries with impunity. I never did receive injuries with 
impunity; nor did I come here to do so. I would sooner leave 
the world. Mr. L. then proceeded: 

" Were I to be allowed time to bring forward testimony from 
Vermont, I could prove that my character, as a man of spirit, 
stands on such ground in my country, that I had no need to 
defend it, by entering into a squabble with such a Chief Justice 
in court time. 

" If the proof of these things be considered of importance, I 
hope I shall be allowed time to send to Vermont to obtain it — 
for my own part I cannot so consider it. I must think that the 
House of Representatives ought never to have taken up the 
matter of the difference between Mr. Griswold and myself, 
circumstanced as it was; and that if the House thought other- 
wise, the due submission to their authority, which I have 
always stood ready to pay, and the sorrow which I have ex- 
pressed, and am continually expressing, for my misapprehen- 
sion, might serve as some mitigation of an offence against the 
dignity of this House, which I never could have knowingly 
been guilty of. 

" Mr. Champlin rose and said : It was fully proved that an 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 261 

offence of a gross and injurious nature had been committed by 
the member from Vermont (Mr. Lyon) against the person of 
the member from Connecticut (Mr. Griswold), and that the 
member from Connecticut, whose cheek glowed with indigna- 
tion, and whose arm was nerved by the desire of vengeance, 
recollecting the place in which he stood, and the respect due 
from him to that House," (Much respect he showed, indeed!) 
*' repressed his resentment. 

" Mr. R. Williams did not mean to introduce a debate upon 
this subject, but merely to state the reasons which had induced 
him in the select committee, and in the House, to vote against 
this report. Having made these remarks, he would state why 
he thought the House had not the power to expel the member 
from Vermont. He did not believe that a member of the 
Legislature could be expelled for any act done out of the 
House, except it rendered him infamous. 

" In the rules for the regulation of the proceedings of the 
House, it was declared that, whenever the House meets, the 
Speaker should take the chair at the hour to which the House 
adjourned. But where, he asked, was the Speaker when the 
act complained of was committed, and what was the situa- 
tion of the House at that time? He did not mean to say that 
the Speaker or any other member was not doing his duty, but 
to show that the House was not in order. The Speaker had left 
his seat, and was in that of another member; and the members 
were passing to and from different parts of the House. So 
that if even it could be considered in such a situation as that the 
rules of the House would apply to it, some allowance ought to 
be made to members who might think differently. But cer- 
tainly no motion could have been stated to the House in this 
situation. 



262 MATTHEW LYON 

" These were the reasons, Mr. W. said, which induced him 
to think the member from Vermont ought not be expelled; not 
because he approved of his conduct, or that the insult which he 
states to have been offered to him, as warranting the improper 
manner in which he resented it; not because the House had not 
the power to expel its members, but because it was not in such 
a situation at the time as to authorize an expulsion for the 
offence, and that, therefore, the person offending did not know 
that any such consequence as an expulsion could be the pun- 
ishment to which he was liable. 

"Mr. Harper said, he should, like the gentleman from North 
Carolina, omit noticing the provocation said to be given to the 
gentleman from Vermont. He believed that was out of the 
question, because, if the act complained of had been in con- 
sequence of a blow received, he would have had both the gentle- 
men expelled; or if the gentleman from Connecticut had given 
way to his feelings, and struck the member from Vermont to 
his feet, in return for the insult he had received, in that case he 
should have been for involving both in one sentence; for, if this 
rule was once departed from, and provocation was to be set 
up as an apology for outrage, every person would be left to 
judge in his own cause as to the sufficiency of provocation. 
The distinction between words and personal attack, is a dis- 
tinction well understood. No language could be sufficiently 
provoking to warrant a blow. In well-bred society, when a 
man receives an affront, does he knock down the person giving 
it? No. He represses his feelings, and takes another time 
and place to obtain justice; and except the members of that 
House were to conduct themselves in this manner, they laid 
prostrate the barriers which protected decency of conduct 
among them." (False, as was soon proved.) 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 263 

" Friday, February 9. 
" Mr. Harper said, he was under the necessity of performing 
a very disagreeable duty. It was a duty, however, which he 
found himself bound to perform, since no other member had 
thought proper to undertake it. 

" It must be recollected by many members of that House, 
that the member from Vermont, whose very extraordinary 
conduct has been for some time the subject for discussion, 
yesterday, at the conclusion of his defence, made use of an 
expression so outrageous, so gross and indecent, that no gen- 
tleman yet had been able to repeat it;* and if this expression 
could have been buried in silence, he, for one, should have 
been in favor of its being so buried; but, unfortunately, this 
could not be the case, it had not only been heard by many of 
the members, but by many strangers; and he was authorized 
to say, it was about to appear in one of the public gazettes of 
this city." (Porcupine published it.) "As it could not, there- 
fore, be kept from public view, it was necessary to take such 
notice of it as it deserved. 

" Mr. Dent accordingly presented a statement of the of- 
fensive words to the Chair; which, without being read, was 
referred to the Committee of the Whole to whom was referred 
the report of the Committee of Privileges. The question for 
this reference was carried by the casting vote of the Speaker, 
there being 43 votes for it, and 43 votes against it." (Even 
nine Federalists broke away from the ridiculous Mr. Harper 
on this vote.) 

" Mr. Shepard said, the member from Vermont had been 

*The expression alluded to, if used at all, which some members de- 
nied and it was not in the published remarks of Colonel Lyon, was 
merely vulgar, and not obscene. Fielding uses like language in "Tom 
Jones," and Chaucer and Shakespeare were similar transgressors. 



264 MATTHEW LYON 

guilty of an indecency for which he ought to be expelled from 
his seat. The gentleman acknowledged that it was his com- 
mon practice to scourge everyone who offends him. It was 
not necessary, therefore, to send to Vermont to inquire his 
character there. For his own part, he could not consent to 
sit with him. If he must be a legislator, it should be in a 
part of the world where all decisions were made by spitting 
and scratching. He was sure no gentleman or modest man 
could plead in behalf of such a man. He hoped the member 
from Vermont would be expelled, without spending much 
time on the subject. 

" Mr. Nicholas was always desirous of the approbation of 
the gentleman who had just sat down, because he believed 
he always acted from the best motives. He hoped that gen- 
tleman would also have allowed that others might act from 
principle as well as himself. He could not refrain, however, 
from doing what he conceived to be his duty, whatever might 
be the motives which gentlemen chose to attribute to his con- 
duct. But whatever his opinion might be of the measures 
proposed to be taken in consequence of the ofiFence under con- 
sideration, with respect to the ofTence itself, he condemned 
it as much as any other gentleman, as indecent and improper. 

" Mr. N. felt it necessary to make some observations 
on this subject, because the report of the Committee of 
Privileges does not state facts as they are; he supposed it 
had been composed hastily, as it certainly does not correspond 
with the impression which the evidence makes. The gentle- 
man who introduced the resolution, like a good lawyer, has 
made the case broad enough to support it. He has evidently 
given way to the impression of the moment, as the evidence 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 265 

certainly does not support the allegations therein contained. 
(Mr. N. reads the resolution.) He said he could not agree 
to this resolution, because he denied that the House was sit- 
ting, or that the offence was done in view of the House. He 
should make some observations on the testimony, and show 
wherein it differed from the report of the committee. He 
needed no witness to prove the state of the House at the 
time this transaction took place; it was fully in the recollection 
of every gentleman. Not one of them, except the two mem- 
bers appointed to count the ballots, was attending to public 
business, and very few, indeed, who were not out of order. 
The area of the House was full of squads, carrying on con- 
versation without restraint. One article of testimony was 
strong as to this fact. The attention of the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. S. Smith) was drawn to the conversation hold- 
ing around the fire behind him by a loud laugh. There could 
be no doubt, therefore, that the House was not engaged in 
business, was not in order, was not in a situation to be dis- 
turbed by any transaction of this kind. Indeed, he did not 
understand, from what had fallen from the gentleman from 
South Carolina, that he thought it was. His argument was, 
that the Speaker, having once taken the Qiair, called the 
House to order, and the Journals having been read, the rules 
of the House knew of no mode by which it could be disor- 
ganized without an adjournment. 

" Suppose this position was true, what results? Why, that 
it was their business to have been in order, and not that they 
were so; for, whilst the Speaker was out of his Chair, whilst 
members were out of their places, and violating the rules of 
order, no one could say that the House was in session, or 



266 MATTHEW LYON 

that it could claim respect from others as a Legislative body. 
Was it possible, therefore, for men, who were not doing what 
the rules of the House required them to do, to call upon other 
members to keep the rules inviolate? 

" Here was a situation, then, when the members of the 
House were discharged from any duty for two hours, and 
during this period, the transaction which is now the subject 
of inquiry took place. 

" The member from Vermont had but lately got his seat 
in the House, and of course, was not well acquainted with 
its rules; and seeing the members of the House in the situa- 
tion they were, the Speaker himself holding conversation with 
him, and, though not encouraging him in it, yet, by asking 
questions, pushing him further into it than he otherwise would 
probably have gone, the Speaker calUng upon him and another 
gentleman in conversation, ' to take care, or they should want 
seconds.' When this was the situation of things, might it not 
have imposed upon any member in the House? Could it be 
considered that the Speaker thought the rules of the House 
were likely to be violated when he thus spoke? 

" Mr. Nicholas said, he would consider the effect which Mr. 
Griswold's attack was likely to produce upon Mr. Lyon. It 
appeared that, for some purpose or other, which he pretended 
not to know, Mr. Lyon's history was to be raked up for twenty 
years past. A transaction, which at that distance of time took 
place, had been introduced with a view of sinking him in 
public estimation. The first time this painful circumstance 
was mentioned to Mr. Lyon, he refused to take notice of it; 
but the gentleman from Connecticut laid hold of him, which 
was tantamount to saying, ' you shall listen to what I have to 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 26/ 

say,' and repeated the sarcasm. He asked whether, being 
placed in such a situation, there was not some allowance to 
be made for acting in the manner he did? Nor did Mr. 
N. think the mode which Mr. Griswold had taken to re- 
pel anything which the gentleman from Vermont had said 
against the Representatives from Connecticut was the best 
calculated for the purpose. 

" Mr, Sitgreaves said, before the question was taken, he 
wished to make some observations upon it. 

" It was said, that the member from Vermont could not have 
put up with an insult like that offered by the member from 
Connecticut, and that the impossibility of putting up with it 
was a sufficient extenuation of his crime. He had all along 
thought that whenever anything was said of the provocation 
which produced the act complained of, they wandered from 
the proper path. He believed no anterior circumstance had 
anything to do with the judgment which the House ought 
to pass upon this offence. Could any man suppose that the 
feelings of the gentleman from Connecticut were less sensitive 
than the feelings of the gentleman from Vermont? Would 
any man call in question his spirit or ability? Do not all who 
know him, know that his courage, strength and spirit, enabled 
him to take instantaneous revenge, had not his respect for the 
House prevented him from doing so? " 

This seems to show Griswold was the stronger man physi- 
cally. But that did not keep him from running away at the 
water cooler. 

" He wished to add this latter offence to the former, in order 
to show the full ground of the member's expulsion, since this 
latter offence was of too gross a nature to be lost sight of. He 



268 MATTHEW LYON 

moved to add the following words to the resolution : 'And for 
a gross indecency of language in his defence before the House/ 

" Mr. Coit trusted when he declared it to be his intention 
to vote against this amendment, he should not be thought to 
be an advocate of Mr. Lyon, or of his indecent language. In 
the course of his defence, he had made use of several expres- 
sions highly improper to be used by a member of that House; 
but they mark the character of the man. He was unwilling, 
however, to take hold of these circumstances against him, but 
would give them all the proper weight they deserved. He 
presumed the particular expression alluded to fell from the 
member inadvertently, and was not intended to offend the 
decorum and order of the House. He therefore thought, not- 
withstanding the opinion which he had of the man, that it 
would be more consistent with the candor and dignity of the 
House not to notice it. 

" Mr, S, Smith did not believe that the expression alluded to 
was read. What the gentleman read, was delivered in a tone 
of voice which every one could hear; but what he said as he 
sat down was uttered in a lower voice, and he did not hear 
it. He had read his speech that morning in the papers, in 
which there was no such expression. He wished to repeat 
to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr, Rutledge) who had 
given him a philippic, that his reason for wishing to take a 
vote upon this question without debate, was no other than 
to spare a further expense of time upon a business, which, he 
thought, had already occupied too much. 

"After a few other observations, the question was put on 
the amendment and carried, 48 to 43. 

" The question on the resolution as amended was about to 
be put, when 

" Mr. Gallatin said he knew how late in the day it was, and 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 269 

therefore his remarks would not be long; but as he considered 
there was a point of view in which the subject had not been 
placed, he wished to say a few words before the question was 
taken. 

" Of the fact itself he had no remarks to make; the evidence 
was direct, and all could draw their inferences from it. 

" But it appeared to him that gentlemen who expressed so 
much sensibility on the occasion, had confined themselves 
wholly to the indecency committed within the walls of the 
House, without taking any notice of the nature of the punish- 
ment proposed to be inflicted. 

" Our Government, he said, was a Government by repre- 
sentation. The people of the United States had not vested 
power with a sparing hand; they had given all power out of 
their hands; but they had guarded against the abuse of it. 
They had said this power shall not be exercised but by persons 
appointed by ourselves. This being the case, said Mr. G., 
we, the representatives of the people, have only a limited 
power over individual representatives in our body. It is true 
the Constitution has given us the power of expulsion, but 
under as much caution as power could be given. 

" When he put questions to the witnesses in relation to the 
order of the House, at the time the act complained of took 
place, he did it not with a view of lessening the offence itself. 
He did not mean to inquire whether the member from Ver- 
mont had committed a less degree of indecency, because the 
House was in one situation, than it would have been if it 
had been in another; but his object was to show that the 
public business had not been interrupted, and that the House 
was in a situation in which it could not have been interrupted. 



270 MATTHEW LYON 

It was true the Speaker had, in the morning, taken the Chair, 
and the House had not adjourned; but it must also be 
allowed that the House was not at that time organized. What 
was the business before the House? A committee of two 
members were counting the votes for managers of an im- 
peachment. Were they interrupted; or could they be inter- 
rupted by an incident of this kind? He was sure they were 
not interrupted. If, then, the public business was not inter- 
rupted, and if the fact was not of that nature which showed 
a corruption of heart, he did not think it would be proper to 
expel the member from Vermont. 

" Monday, February 12. 

" Mr. Findley said, the question before the committee was 
a question of indecency, and not of crime; and he wished, for 
the sake of decency, so much had not been said upon it. In 
forming the Constitution there had been a distinction made 
between punishment and expulsion. Expulsion was evidently 
the highest punishment which the House could inflict, but 
no one could say indecency was the highest crime. He never 
understood, either at the time the Constitution was formed, 
or since, that expulsion was intended to be applied to any- 
thing but crimes, for what would be a subject for impeach- 
ment in other bodies where impeachments could be brought. 
This was not, therefore, an opinion formed upon the spur of 
the occasion. Mr. F. said, he knew of an instance of this 
kind, which happened in another legislative body, upon 
which a committee was appointed to consider it; but they never 
made a report, but held their decision in terrorem over the 
offending member. He thought, if a similar course had been 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 27I 

taken in this matter, it would have been preferable to spending 
so much time in debate upon it. 

" Mr. Shepard spoke again upon this subject. If the mem- 
ber from Vermont were not expelled, he supposed it would 
break up the present session, without doing any business ; that 
it would divide the States against each other, and finally end 
in a civil war." Such arrant nonsense as this was received 
with a serious face by the Federalists. 

" Mr. Pinckney said, in order to insure perfect freedom of 
debate, it was necessary to repress every personal violence in 
the first instance. In considering this question, he considered 
it as fixing a rule for their government in future; and he 
thought, if it were so considered (and no reference had to the 
dispute which had produced the discussion), there would be a 
pretty unanimous opinion that an oflfence of this kind ought 
to be punished by expulsion. 

" Mr. Livingston rose to entreat the gentlemen, as they 
valued the respectability of the House, the good opinion of 
their constituents, and the public Treasury, that they would 
suffer this business to come to a conclusion. Their constitu- 
ents, he was certain, had long been tired of the discussion. 
Nearly twenty days, which had cost as many thousand dollars 
to the country, had been consumed in this business. Gentle- 
men rose to express their abhorrence of abuse in abusive 
terms, and their hatred of indecent acts with indecency. The 
simple question before the House was, what degree of punish- 
ment was proper to be inflicted upon the member from Ver- 
mont. (The Chairman informed Mr. L. he was mistaken 
in saying twenty days had been consumed in this business; 
it had been before the House only fourteen.) Mr. L. said 
it was in a fair way for being twenty. 



2y2 MATTHEW LYON 

" Mr. R. Williams rose and took notice of the different argu- 
ments urged in favor of the amendment. He denied that the 
committee ought to consider the consequences to which an 
act might possibly lead; if so, an assault would of course be 
punished equally with murder, as it might possibly lead to it. 
He did not think the House ought to interfere any further, 
than to preserve order and decorum in its proceedings. If 
a member of the House committed a crfme, he was answerable 
to the laws equally with any other man. Upon the whole, 
he considered the proposed punishment as disproportionate 
to the offence, and should therefore move an amendment. 
Mr. W, then moved to amend the resolution reported, 
by striking out the words, ' be for this disorderly behaviour 
expelled,' and insert in their place, ' is highly censurable, and 
that he be reprimanded by the Speaker, in the presence of this 
House.' 

" Mr, Dayton (the Speaker) said, the length of the present 
debate had been complained of; but who, he asked, had first 
broke silence after the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Thatcher) had expressed his wish that the vote might be 
taken without debate? It was the gentleman who had just 
sat down ; and now he had given the committee another speech, 
and introduced a proposition calculated to produce further 
discussion. He wishes the gentleman from Vermont to be 
reprimanded by the Speaker. What could the Speaker say 
to him? He could only say. You have done an act which 
would disgrace a blackguard; come and take your seat in the 
House. You have insulted us with words which show your 
defiance of us, but come and sit with us and be our brother 
legislator. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 273 

** Were these words to be addressed to the member? The 
Speaker would sooner address him in words of thunder which 
would drive him from his presence. 

" Mr. Nicholas hoped the committee would not be pre- 
vented from doing what it thought proper, because there might 
be a difference between the private opinion of the Speaker, 
and what he might be called upon to do in his capacity as 
Speaker, 

" Mr. R. Williams denied that he was the first who began 
the debate. 

" Mr. Dayton repeated that he was the first who broke 
silence after the gentleman from Massachusetts had wished 
the vote to be taken without debate. 

" Mr. R. Williams said that it would appear, from the man- 
ner in which the gentleman had said he broke the silence, 
that he had begun the debate, which he did not. Mr. W. 
said, he was more strongly convinced than ever of the 
impropriety of extending the power of expulsion, since he had 
heard the passionate expressions of the gentleman from New 
Jersey. Was this the language of a Judge? He would not 
only pass the law upon the offender, but he would do it 
with thunder and vengeance! In his opinion, Mr. W. said, 
nothing could tend more to disgrace the councils of America 
than such heated language as this. It was suf^cient to induce 
the people to say, ' We have too much liberty, too much free- 
dom of speech; our Government is bad,' and to be ready to 
lay hold of any other that is offered to them. A sentiment 
of this kind tended more to destroy the Government than any- 
thing he had heard. Gentlemen talked of heat in debate; but 
where did it come from? Not from the gentlemen in opinion 



274 MATTHEW LYON 

with him, must be evident to every one. Whatever opinion 
might be held of his amendment, he thought it proper, and 
therefore made it; nor did he think it liberal in any man to 
treat it as it had been treated. Was it right to be told by a 
member, because he had moved an amendment like the pres- 
ent, that he should be ashamed to sit with him? Was this 
what the public expected to hear in its Legislative councils? 
He believed not. He thought it would do no credit to him 
who uttered the sentiment. 

" Mr. Dayton said that the gentleman from North Carolina 
had misstated what he had said in several instances; but he 
did not think it worth while to set him right, it would be a 
waste of time and words. 

" Mr. Harper was strongly opposed to the amendment. He 
was sorry to see gentlemen determined to support the member 
from Vermont, at all events, rather than lose a vote on 
favorite political questions. The reprimand proposed, he was 
confident, would have no effect upon them; besides it was a 
punishment of the lightest kind which the House could inflict, 
and by no means proportioned to the highest possible out- 
rage." 

Jefiferson said that Harper wanted a monarchy in place of 
the republic. Hamilton called Harper a man of vanity. 

" Mr. Dana condemned the wish that had been expressed 
for passing a silent vote upon this subject, and particularly 
the conduct of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. S. Smith), 
for having expressed such a wish. 

" Mr. D. said he did not mean to cast any blame upon 
gentlemen who differed from him in opinion; nor would he 
envy any gentleman the pleasure they would have in the com- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 275 

pany of the gentleman from Vermont, if they chose to asso- 
ciate with such a kennel of filth, let them do so; let them press 
him to their heart, and salute him as their brother, they may 
do it without envy; let them be designated as the companions 
of Mr. Lyon, by being pointed at, by ' There goes the member 
of Congress who voted to have Matthew Lyon as a com- 
panion!' If they felt themselves invulnerable to such a re- 
proach, he acknowledged he had not attained to that degree 
of insensibility. He himself would put him away, as citizens 
removed impurities and filth from their docks and wharves." 

Dana was not nearly the equal of Lyon in ability and real 
worth, and his language here shows he could play the low 
blackguard. 

" Mr. S. Smith thought, as he had determined to say nothing 
upon this subject, that he should not have received the cen- 
sure of any one. He had conversed with several gentlemen on 
both sides of the question, and he thought, in order to avoid 
a lengthy discussion, which could have no effect but produce 
heat, it would be best to take a silent vote on the question. 
The gentleman who had just sat down had called upon him 
as a military man. He did not come here as a military man, 
but as a legislator. It seemed as if gentlemen were determined 
to make him speak on this subject; if he had wished to do so, 
they would not have been able to keep him silent. He thought 
the gentleman last up had made a speech to little purpose. If 
military opinions were wanted, two military gentlemen had 
already given their opinions. If, twenty years ago, he had 
been asked an opinion, he supposed he should have given such 
a one as the gentleman from Connecticut would not have liked 
to hear. 



276 MATTHEW LYON 

" The question on the resolution was put and carried, 51 
to 43. 

" The committee then rose, and reported the amendment to 
the resoUition, together with the evidence which had been 
taken before them. The House took up the amendment 
(relative to the offensive words in the defence) and agreed to 
it, 49 to 46. 

" Mr. Macon said, it was observable there were two opinions 
in the House; one for expulsion, the other for a reprimand. 
He did not think the offence was such as would authorize an 
expulsion. He said there had been as many illiberal expres- 
sions in the course of this debate as he had ever heard. Gen- 
tlemen had talked of party doing this, and party doing the 
other, whilst they themselves are the first to mention it. He 
hoped they would have kept these things out of the sight of 
the world. If gentlemen of one description voted one way, 
those of another voted a contrary way. As for the punishment 
of being reprimanded in the face of the House, which would 
be entered upon the Journal, he thought it a very serious one, 
and he would almost as soon be hanged at once. 

" The question was then taken by yeas and nays, and the 
amendment was negatived, 52 to 44. 

" The question was next taken upon the resolution for ex- 
pulsion, by yeas and nays, and carried, yeas 52, nays 44. 

" The Constitution requiring two-thirds of the members 
present to carry a vote of expulsion, the motion was declared 
by the Speaker not carried. 

" The following is the testimony taken in the foregoing case, 
as delivered in at the Clerk's table. The Speaker, Jonathan 
Dayton, Esq., of New Jersey, deposed as follows: 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 2// 

" When the ballots of the House for managers of the im- 
peachment against Mr. Blount were brought to the table to be 
counted, and the committee who were named as tellers were 
actually engaged in that business, I walked forth from the 
Chair without adjourning the House, in order to take a little 
exercise about the room. I soon heard some expressions 
rather warmer than usual at the fire, behind me, and turning, 
observed that they passed between Mr. Lyon, of Vermont, 
and Mr. Dana, of Connecticut. I addressed myself imme- 
diately to them, and said, ' Gentlemen, keep yourselves cool;' 
and afterwards added, ' if you proceed much further, you will 
want seconds.' Upon this, Mr. Lyon addressed himself to 
me, and said, among other things, that he had in his own mind, 
designated the embassy to Cayenne for Mr. Dana; upon which, 
in order to give a turn of pleasantry to the conversation, I 
asked Mr. Lyon whether he had reserved for himself the mis- 
sion to Kamtschatka, among the furred tribes. After a few 
other remarks, Mr. Lyon began some animadversions upon 
the temper of the people of Connecticut, and the conduct of 
their Representatives in Congress. He said he had good 
reason to know and declare, that the members from that State 
were acting in direct opposition to the opinions of nine-tenths 
of their constituents ; that, regardless of the public good, they 
were seeking their own private interests; that their object was 
to obtain offices for themselves; that if they could not obtain 
the most lucrative, they would not refuse those which were less 
so, (mentioning two sums, which I think were nine thousand 
dollars and one thousand dollars;) that he, Mr. Lyon, had a 
good right to know the people of Connecticut, for he had to 
fight with them in his own district. 



2/8 MATTHEW LYON 

" Upon this, Mr. Griswold, who was sitting in Mr. Harper's 
seat, asked whether he had fought them with a wooden sword, 
or with his wooden sword. Mr. Lyon either not hearing this 
question, or affecting not to have heard it, continued his re- 
marks to me, and added, that when the Connecticut people 
came into his district on visits to their relations, they came 
with strong prejudices against him and his politics; but, after 
conversing with them freely he had always succeeded in bring- 
ing them over to his side; that if he should go into that State 
and talk with the people, he could open their eyes and effect 
an entire change there. Upon which, Mr. Griswold laying 
his hand gently upon Mr. Lyon's arm, in order to attract his 
attention, said, ' if you were to enter into Connecticut for the 
purpose you mention, you could not alter the opinion of the 
meanest hostler.' Upon which Mr. Griswofd repeated the 
substance of a former question, and asked, whether, when he 
should come, he would take with him his wooden sword. 
Upon which followed the indecency which has given rise to 
this reference. 

" Samuel Smith, of Maryland, deposed as follows : ' I passed 
Mr. Lyon, who was engaged in a jesting conversation with 
other members such as gentlemen frequently amuse them- 
selves with, when the House is not in actual business. Not 
thinking the conversation interesting, my attention was par- 
ticularly directed to my letters, when I heard Mr. Lyon direct- 
ing his conversation to the Speaker, who sat in the seat be- 
hind me, generally occupied by Mr. Dana; Mr. Griswold in 
that of Mr. Harper. Mr. Griswold then said something which 
created a loud laugh, which I did not hear, but which I have 
since understood, related to the wooden sword. I turned, 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 279 

and observed that Mr. Lyon still continued his conversation, 
directed to the Speaker, and in the same style of jocularity, 
indeed, all the gentlemen appeared to be in perfect good 
humor, and to consider the conversation as amusing. 

" Mr. Griswold had removed outside of the bar to where 
Mr. Lyon stood. At this time, having left my seat with the 
intention to leave the House, I leaned on the bar next to Mr. 
Lyon, and fronting Mr. Griswold. Mr. Lyon having observed 
(still directing himself to the Speaker), that, could he have the 
same opportunity of explanation that he had in- his own dis- 
trict, he did not doubt he could change the opinion of the 
people in Connecticut; Mr. Griswold then said, ' If you, Mr, 
Lyon, should go into Connecticut, you could not change the 
opinion of the meanest hostler in the State.' To which Mr. 
Lyon then said ' That may be your opinion, but I think dif- 
ferently, and if I was to go into Connecticut, I am sure I 
could produce the efifect I have mentioned.' Mr. Griswold 
then said, ' Colonel Lyon, when you go into Connecticut, you 
had better take with you the wooden sword that was attached 

to you at the camp at .' On which, Mr. Lyon spat in 

Mr. Griswold's face, who coolly took his handkerchief out of 
his pocket and wiped his face. Believing that the quarrel 
would go no further, I left the House. 

" David Brooks, of New York, deposed as follows: 
"At the time which has been mentioned, I was sitting in my 
seat, and the Speaker in Mr. Dana's. When he, Mr. Lyon, 
talked of contending, or fighting with the people of Connec- 
ticut, Mr. Griswold asked, if he had not better take his wooden 
sword. I thought he did not hear it, as I looked at him, think- 
ing it a pressing question, and he did not change countenance, 



28o MATTHEW LYON 

but continued his conversation with the Speaker. Mr. Gris- 
wold then said, he does not hear me, or I said he does not hear 
you, I do not recollect which. Mr. Griswold afterwards went 
on the outside of the bar, and standing by Mr. Lyon, laid his 
hand on his arm, and said, ' You could not change the opinion 
of a single hostler in the State of Connecticut.' Mr. Lyon 
then talked of setting up a press in Connecticut, and fighting 
them on their own ground. Mr. Griswold then said, you will 
fight them with your wooden sword. Mr. Lyon then spit in 
his face. Upon this, Mr. Griswold stepped back with his 
right foot, looked steadily at Mr. Lyon, and stiffened his arm 
as if going to strike. Mr. Dana then observed, they would 
consider of this matter; and I said, this is not the place; there 
is a time and a place for everything. Mr. Griswold wiped 
his face with his handkerchief, and went out with his col- 
league. 

" Samuel W. Dana, of Connecticut, deposed as follows: 
"A very short time before the commission of the outrage 
now under consideration I stepped within the bar, and stood 
near the end of the desk which is in front of the seat usually 
occupied by myself, the Speaker being then in that seat. 
From the tenor of the conversation I judged that the member 
from Vermont had been speaking of his ability to effect some 
great object in Connecticut; when Mr. Griswold replied, ac- 
cording to my present recollection, to this effect: ' You could 
not, if you should go into Connecticut with your wooden 
sword and candle;' alluding, as I then apprehended, to a report 
in circulation, which, as also that of the sword, I knew to have 
been heard by Mr. Griswold and by the member from Ver- 
mont. On this the member from Vermont spit in Mr. Gris- 
wold's face. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 28l 

" Considering the observations of some gentlemen of the 
committee, perhaps, in justice to the member from Vermont, 
I ought to mention that, while Mr, Griswold was in Mr. Har- 
per's seat, I was in the passage leading from the eastern door 
of the hall to the Speaker's table, and conversed for a short 
time with Mr. Griswold and Mr. Brooks, when I was informed 
that Mr. Griswold had spoken to the member from Vermont, 
and alluded to the report of the wooden sword. On inquiring 
what answer was made to this by the member from Vermont, 
Mr. Griswold observed that he believed it was not heard by 
the member from Vermont, as he made no answer to it. This 
was before the conversation which immediately preceded the 
personal outrage offered to Mr. Griswold, and, I think, at a 
diflferent time from any which I have before mentioned. 

" Chauncey Goodrich, Esq., of Connecticut, deposed as fol- 
lows: 

" The only information I have on the subject, relates to a 
conversation with Mr. Lyon, relative to his having been 
cashiered in the Army. I came from New York to this place, 
this session, in a stage taken by Mr. Champlin, together with 
him, Mr. Otis and Mr. Lyon. We were the only persons in 
the stage for a considerable part of the way. I had but little 
personal acquaintance with Mr. Lyon before this time. Mr. 
Lyon, on the way, seemed to be disposed to give us the history 
of his life. It was filled up, according to the account he gave 
us, with many singular and ludicrous anecdotes. The ludi- 
crous anecdotes that he told of himself, in a jocular manner, 
produced from the gentlemen with him a kind of pleasantry. 

" I think either immediately, or some time before Mr. Lyon 
adverted to the subject, something was said of Mr. Lyon's 



282 MATTHEW LYON 

having been in the Army; I cannot be very minute in the ac- 
count he gave. I recollect his saying that allusions to his 
having been cashiered had been in the public papers, that it 
was a matter of great mortification ; that he could not bear to 
hear of the affair; that it happened when he was young. He 
said that he was a subaltern officer of a corps stationed on the 
frontier, at a great distance from the main Army, and without 
support; that the officers and men were uneasy, and discon- 
tented with their situation; that they considered it as being 
too exposed; that he, at a certain time, was out with a party 
of the men ; that when he returned, he found the corps to which 
he had belonged either had abandoned, or were abandoning 
(I cannot say certainly which), their post; that they went to 
some distance, where they made a halt; that he endeavored to 
persuade them to return, they refused, the officers insisted that 
he should go to headquarters to General Gates, and make a 
representation of their situation; he went, upon being intro- 
duced to General Gates, and introducing the subject, General 
Gates damned him for a coward, and ordered that he should 
go into the custody of a guard ; that he, Mr. Lyon, insisted on 
his rights, as an officer, not to be put under guard. That the 
Adjutant-General, an aid of General Gates, said something on 
the subject, and Mr. Lyon was finally arrested, tried with the 
rest of the officers, by a court martial, and sentenced to be 
cashiered from the Army. 

" I do not recollect having mentioned this conversation to 
Mr. Griswold, my colleague. 

" Christopher G. Chaplin, Esq., of Rhode Island, deposed 
as follows: 

" I have attentively considered the evidence given to the 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 283 

Committee of the Whole, by Mr. Goodrich, and to the best 
of my recollection, it is correct. 

" Joseph B. Varnum," Esq., of Massachusetts, deposed as 
follows : 

" On the day on which the House were balloting for man- 
agers of the impeachment of William Blount, the ballots being 
collected, and the tellers counting them, I was standing at 
the fire in the west part of the House, in company with other 
gentlemen ; the Speaker having left his chair, and the members 
generally their seats. Mr. Lyon came up to the exterior of 
the circle round the fire, and observed, that he imagined there 
would be a bustle; that he had spit in Griswold's face. I ob- 
served to him that I was exceedingly sorry for it, and asked 
him how a thing of the kind could possibly have taken place. 
Mr. Lyon then told me the circumstances which he said pro- 
voked him to do the act. 

" Q. Did Mr. Lyon tell you that he heard Mr. Griswold 
twice use the expression respecting the wooden sword? 

"A. Yes. 

"The following narrative was given by Mr. Lyon, in the 
course of his defence before the Committee of Privileges, on 
Thursday, the ist of February: 

" Gentlemen of the Committee : After having heard so much 
about the * wooden sword,' an expression, the repetition and 
application of which in an indignant manner has caused you 
this present trouble, I hope you'll indulge me with a patient 
hearing to a short narrative of the circumstance which 
awakens my feelings, and utterly disables me from bearing 
such reflections. 



o Representative Varnum was the great-grandfather of a recent 
Surrogate of New York, Hon. James M. Varnum. 



284 MATTHEW LYON 

"Twenty-one years have elapsed since the unfortunate af- 
fair, during which, it has slept in oblivion, until party rage 
and party newspapers tore open the wound in my breast. 

"To pursue the narrative: General St. Clair, who presided 
at the Court Martial, which condemned me, in the summer 
succeeding that misfortune, recommended me to General 
Schuyler, informing him (as I suppose) of my ill-usage and of 
my subsequent services, and obtained for me a commission 
of Paymaster to a Continental regiment commanded by Colo- 
nel Seth Warner, which commission entitled me to the rank 
of Captain. In this I was again unfortunately led into trouble, 
as the ofificers of the regiment had, previous to my appoint- 
ment, petitioned Congress for the restoration of the former 
Paymaster, who had been cashiered, and was the son of a Con- 
gressman of Connecticut. 

" Notwithstanding the coldness this created towards me, 
and the consequent bickerings, no officer ever thought proper 
to mention to me the unhappy aflfair of the preceding summer. 
In this regiment I served at the capture of Burgoyne; and the 
succeeding spring when my family could return to my planta- 
tion, from which Burgoyne's invasion had drove them, at the 
solicitation of Governor Chittenden, and many other friends, 
I resigned at a time when the officers of the regiment, almost 
all, had become reconciled, and wished my stay. Immediately 
on my resignation I was appointed Captain in the militia, and 
to several civil offices under the authority of the State of 
Vermont, which had newly formed a Constitution and set up 
government. 

" In the year 1778, I was appointed a member of the Legis- 
lature, in which station I served my country ever since, save 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 28$ 

two years, until my appointment to Congress. I held a station 
in the militia, until the command of the regiment I lived in, 
with a full Colonel's commission, was given me. I moved to 
where I now reside about the close of the war, and I have had 
no concern with military matters, nor been a candidate for any 
military position since. 

" Thus circumstanced, gentlemen of the committee, I must 
appeal to your own feelings, whether it belonged to me to re- 
ceive with impunity the aggravated insult offered me by that 
young gentleman, Mr. Griswold. The station I now hold 
points out to you the propriety of giving full credit to the plain 
story I now tell you, especially as it is corroborated by evi- 
dence. The proper testimony to support this narrative I will 
procure and lay before the public as soon as the situation of the 
evidences will admit. 

" I shall conclude with making some observations on the 
testimony, all of which corroborates that I was standing with- 
out the bar conversing with the Speaker, who sat on an out- 
side chair; the subject I believe it is apparent was Mr. Nicho- 
las's motion. I did not like the opposition given to it by the 
Connecticut members. I insisted they did not act with the 
sense and understanding of the people of that State. This 
led to saying many other things; though my discourse was 
directed to the Speaker, it appears I had the wit and raillery 
of five or six gentlemen from New York and Connecticut to 
withstand and reply to; it appears that I supported it with 
good humor. 

" It appears also, by the testimony, that Mr. Griswold, in 
Mr. Harper's seat, gave me a most cutting insult. The 
Speaker whom I was in conversation with, heard it as well as 



286 MATTHEW LYON 

some others; they testify that I did not appear to hear it. 
Why not hear it as well as they? For no other reason than 
to keep up the prevaiHng good humor. But Mr. Griswold, 
not satisfied with the insult already given, says to one of the 
witnesses, ' He does not hear me,' and removes and intrudes 
himself to my side, pulls me by the arm to call my attention, 
and then more particularly and more deliberately repeats the 
insult, knowing it to be the most provoking abuse that one 
gentleman could possibly offer another, 

" Under all these circumstances, I cannot but entertain the 
fullest assurance that I stand justified for the repulse of that 
deliberate insult offered me by Mr. Griswold, in the view of 
the Committee of the House of Representatives, and of every 
man of honor or feeling who shall ever hear the story. 

"Thursday, February 15. 

" FRACAS IN THE HOUSE. 

" (About a quarter past eleven o'clock, after prayers, whilst 
the Speaker was in his Chair, and many members in their 
places, but before the House had been called to order, and 
before the Journal had been read, Mr. Griswold entered the 
House, and observing Mr. Lyon in his place (who was writ- 
ing), he went up to him with a pretty strong walking stick 
in his hand, with which he immediately began to beat him 
with great violence. Mr. G.'s approach was observed by 
Mr. Lyon, but before he could get from behind his desk 
he had received some severe blows. As soon as he got on 
the floor of the House he endeavored to lay hold of Mr. G. 
(having no stick or weapon in his hand), but he was pre- 
vented from so doing by Mr. G.'s falling back, and the contin- 
ual blows with which he was assailed. At length' getting 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 287 

behind the Speaker's chair, Mr. Lyon snatched up the tongs 
from the fire; the combatants then closed and came down to- 
gether on the floor, Mr. G. being uppermost. The mem- 
bers of the House who till now seemed to look on with 
amazement at the scene, without an attempt to put an end 
to it, got round the parties and separated them, but not 
before Mr. L. had aimed a blow at Mr. G.'s head with the 
tongs, but which he parried off. The Speaker was now called 
upon to desire the members to take their seats, and form the 
House. Whilst this was doing, the two enraged members met 
again without the bar, and but for the doorkeeper and some 
gentlemen present, would have renewed the combat. Order 
having been obtained (at least as much as it was possible to 
obtain from the agitated state of the House), the Clerk pro- 
ceeded to read the Journal, and the business of the day was 
entered upon. It continued till one o'clock, when from the 
perturbation which was naturally occasioned by such a scene, 
and it being evident that business was very little attended to 
by a great part of the House, a motion for an adjournment 
was made and carried. It will be seen that no notice was 
taken of this proceeding in the course of the sitting.) 

" Friday, February 16. 

" CASE OF GRISWOLD AND LYON. 

" Immediately upon the Journals having been read, 
" Mr. Davis of Kentucky, rose and proposed the following 
resolution for the adoption of the House : 

" ' Resolved, That Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon, 
members of this House, for violent and disorderly behaviour 
committed in the House, be expelled therefrom.' 



288 MATTHEW LYON 

" Mr. Nicholas hoped the resolution would be permitted to 
lie on the table. 

" Mr. Davis saw no reason for delaying a decision upon this 
resolution. He thought the conduct of these gentlemen had 
been so grossly violent, and so notorious to most of the mem- 
bers of the House, that there need be no hesitation in deciding 
upon it. And as he believed neither the dignity, the honor, 
nor peace of that House could be preserved while these mem- 
bers remained in it, he hoped the House would be unanimous 
in voting their expulsion. 

" Mr. Thatcher did not see why the innocent should be 
punished with the guilty. The gentleman who brought for- 
ward this proposition, he supposed, did not wish this. From 
what he saw of the affray, he did not think Mr. Lyon deserved 
to be punished for the part he acted. He certainly received a 
severe beating, but he appeared to be passive from the begin- 
ning to the end; and he did not think Mr. Lyon ought to be 
expelled because he was beaten. 

" Mr. J. Parker seconded the motion for the expulsion of 
these members, because he believed there would be no peace 
in the House until they were expelled. He was sorry the 
gentleman from Massachusetts should have said he saw noth- 
ing but what was passive on the part of Mr. Lyon. He 
himself saw more, and that gentleman must have seen it if 
he had his eyes about him. He said, that after the ofifending 
members had been separated, Mr. Lyon met Mr. Griswold 
without the bar of the House and began to belabor him with 
his cahe, when they were again separated. 

" Mr. Otis proposed the following resolution for adoption: 

'"Resolved, That Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon, 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 289 

members of this House, be respectively required by the 
Speaker to pledge their words to this House, that they will 
not commit any act of violence upon each other during this 
session; and that if either refuse to make such engagements, 
the party refusing shall be committed to the custody of the 
Sergeant-at-Arms, until he shall comply with this obligation.' 

" Mr. Sewall understood a motion had been agreed to in 
relation to the afifair of yesterday, which might produce an 
expulsion of the members in question. 

" The question was then taken on the resolution and carried 
by a large majority, there being y^^ votes in favor of it. 

" The Speaker asked, whether it was the pleasure of the 
House that the Sergeant-at-Arms should be sent for Mr. 
Lyon. 

" Mr. Sitgreaves said it might not be convenient for Mr. 
Lyon to attend the House; he asked whether the resolution 
might not be sent to him, and his answer be received in writ- 
ing? 

" Mr. Nicholas supposed, that if both gentlemen prepared 
a declaration in writing, and presented it to-morrow, it would 
answer the purpose. 

" Mr. Harper replied, the mischief intended to be guarded 
against might in the mean time be done. 

" Mr. Gallatin said, he had just been called out by a member 
of the House, who had asked him whether he thought it 
would be proper for Mr. Lyon to attend the House. He sup- 
posed, therefore, if the Sergeant-at-Arms were sent for him, 
he would immediately attend. 

" Mr. Harper hoped the Sergeant-at-Arms would be sent. 

" The Speaker said, as soon as the Clerk had made a copy 



290 MATTHEW LYON 

of the resolution, the Sergeant-at-Arms would wait upon Mr. 
Lyon with it. 

" Mr. Lyon having entered, 

" The Speaker said, the members from Connecticut and Ver- 
mont being now in their places, he should proceed to read the 
resolution which had been entered into by the House. (He 
then read the resolution.) 

" As soon as it was finished reading, 

" Mr. Griswold rose and said, he should not hesitate to enter 
into the proposed engagement. 

" Mr. Lyon also rose and said, he was ready, as it was the 
wish of the House, to agree to the proposition. 

" The Speaker said, then you do accordingly agree to the 
proposition? 

" Both answered, ' I do agree.' 

" Mr. James Gillespie's Testimony. 

" James Gillespie being sworn, saith, that on Thursday 
morning, the 15th instant, he came into the House of Repre- 
sentatives after prayers, and the Speaker had taken the Chair; 
that whilst he was warming himself at the fire next on the 
right of the door, he saw Matthew Lyon, the member from 
Vermont, come to the letter bag, and was putting m some 
letters, as he, this deponent, passed him going into the House; 
that he also saw Roger Griswold sitting in a chair a small 
distance from the Speaker's seat, with a large walking stick 
standing near him; that I went immediately to the alphabet 
and made search for my letters, and as I turned to my seat to 
read them, I heard a noise of blows, etc. ; on looking that way, 
I saw Roger Griswold strike Matthew Lyon, who was in 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 29I 

his place near the center of the front desk opposite to 
the Speaker's seat where he was then sitting, that as 
Mr. Lyon was getting round the desk he received 
two or three blows, and on attempting to close in 
with Mr. Griswold, he, Mr. Lyon, received several strokes 
with the stick from Mr. Griswold. That the deponent 
conceiving, from the complexion of the afifair, that it was a 
preconcerted plan, did not interfere, but asked the Speaker to 
call to order, which he declined, although the call was loud 
from different parts of the House. That as Mr. Lyon ad- 
vanced on Mr. Griswold, he retreated back towards the win- 
dow near the Speaker's seat, by which Mr. Lyon became pos- 
sessed of a pair of tongs and struck at Mr. Griswold, on which 
Mr. Griswold closed with him and they fell, and in a little 
time were parted. That Mr. Lyon expressed disapprobation 
at being parted, and said, as he was rising, I wish I had been 
let alone awhile. That the deponent recollects that, as he 
turned to his seat, he saw Mr. Sewall, from Massachusetts; 
and on he, the deponent, expressing his disapprobation of such 
conduct, Mr. Sewall replied it was right, for we ought to have 
done them justice, and expelled Mr. Lyon; to which I 
answered, take to yourselves all the justice and credit that 
appertains to it; and went and read my letters, and heard no 
more for some time; when, looking up I saw Mr. Sitgreaves 
going out of the south passage, with a walking stick, I be- 
lieve, for Mr. Griswold; and then, and not before, the House 
was called to order, when this deponent thinks it was more 
than half past eleven o'clock. 

"JAMES GILLESPIE. 
" Sworn and subscribed, the 17th February, 1798. 
" Coram : Reynold Keen. 



292 MATTHEW LYON 

" Questions by Mr. Scii'all. 

" Question. Did not the conversation you suppose to have 
happened with me, take place when you was, and I appeared to 
be, agitated with the confusion of the scene? 

" Answer. It was. I returned to my desk to read my letters 
from the first scene, and I presume somewhat agitated. 

" Question. Are you in any degree positive of the words 
you state to have heard from me? 

" Answer. To the best of my recollection, these were the 
words used, or they were words to the same effect. 

" Mr. Havens' s Testimony. 

" Some short time after eleven o'clock, the House attended 
on prayer. After this was over, I was walking in the south 
end of the hall without the bar, and saw Mr. Lyon come in, 
with his cloak on, and go to his seat, which is the fourth from 
the end of that front row of seats which is on the left side of 
the passage leading up to the Speaker's chair, I saw him pull 
off his cloak and take his seat, and perceived that he had a 
small cane in his hand, which he either put between his legs, 
or leaned against a chair beside him, in such manner that 
the end of it was under the long desk that was before him. 
After he sat down, he appeared to be engaged either in writ- 
ing or reading the papers that were before him. 

" It was then about half past eleven, and the Speaker was 
sitting in his chair, but had not called the House to order; 
and I then saw Mr. Griswold coming from the north end of 
the hall across the area in front of the Speaker's chair, with a 
large yellow hickory cane in his hand. Although I was look- 
ing that way as I was walking, I did not notice him much 
until he came within about six or eight feet of Mr. Lyon. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 293 

He was then walking across the floor in a sidelong manner 
towards Mr, Lyon, and Mr. Lyon was sitting with his face 
down looking on his papers, and, as I presume, did not per- 
ceive the approach of Mr. Griswold; and, if my memory serves 
me right, I think he was sitting with his hat on. As soon as 
Mr. Griswold had come in front of Mr, Lyon, he struck him 
with all his force over his head and shoulders, with the smallest 
end of his cane, repeating his blows as fast as possible. Mr, 
Lyon, I think, received three blows in this posture before he 
rose to disengage himself from the desk that was before him 
and the chairs that were on each side of him. He appeared 
to be then trying to recover his cane, which was under his 
desk, but could not do it by reason of the violence of Mr. Gris- 
wold's blows over his head and shoulders. He then rose from 
his seat and got out at the end of the desk, defending himself 
with his arms against the blows of Mr, Griswold, and then 
rushed towards Mr, Griswold and Mr. Griswold retreated 
towards the front of the Speaker's chair, and endeavored to 
keep Mr. Lyon at a distance from him, that he might strike 
him more conveniently with his cane. There was no person 
sitting in the same row of seats with Mr. Lyon when this as- 
sault began. The Speaker was in his chair; and as soon as 
the assault commenced, I expected he would cry out ' order,' 
with a loud voice, but he did not. I was induced to suppose 
this, because I always understood that the rule of the House 
gave the Speaker a right to call the members to order after 
the hour to which the House stood adjourned, although there 
might not be a sufficient number of members present to pro- 
ceed to business, 

" From the situation in which I stood I could not well per- 
ceive how this happened, but I saw Mr. L, on the floor with 



294 MATTHEW LYON 

Mr. G.'s head and shoulders on his breast, and Mr. G.'s legs 
were directed towards me as I came from the other end of the 
room. ]\Ir. L. was then endeavoring to disengage himself 
from Mr. G., and had raised himself partly up, and I then per- 
ceived that he had a black eye. I then seized hold of Mr. G.'s 
left leg to pull him away from Mr. L., and another member, 
whom I afterwards noticed to be my colleague, Mr. Elmendorf, 
seized at the same time hold of Mr. G.'s right leg with the same 
view. As soon as we had done this, Mr. Speaker cried out to me 
and said, 'That is not a proper way to take hold of him.' I 
asked him why? He replied, ' You ought to take hold of him 
by the shoulders.' I said it would not hurt him to pull him a 
foot or two on the carpet. We then in this manner pulled 
Mr. G. from ofT Mr. L., and by this time a number 
of other members had gathered round, and the affray appeared 
to be over. I then walked back to the south end of the hall, 
to the place where I stood when the assault began. Mr. G. 
then passed by me, and went to the easternmost shelf on which 
water stands for the use of the members, and was drinking 
when Mr. L. passed by me with his small cane in his hand, and 
went to the same shelf to drink with Mr. G. As soon as Mr. 
L. had drunk a little, he looked up, and perceiving that it was 
Mr. G. who stood close by him, he said, 'Is it you?' and struck 
at him with his cane, and hit him upon his left shoulder or 
cheek. I observed that Mr. L.'s blow was but a feeble one, and 
Mr. G. then retreated from him six or eight feet. I then saw 
Mr. Sitgreaves run to the southeast corner of the room and get 
a large hickory cane, and passing by Mr. L. with a good deal 
of animation in his countenance, he put the cane in Mr. G.'s 
hand. Mr. L. then put himself in a posture of defence, and 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 295 

said, ' Come on.' I then cried out ' Order! ' and Mr. Thom- 
son, from New Jersey, then stepping up and looking me full in 
the face said, ' What is the matter? ' I replied, I would have 
no more fighting here. Mr. G. then retired, and Mr. Speaker 
called the House to order, and so the afifray ended. 

'* Mr. Gordons Testimony. 
" When separated, I saw Mr. G. go towards the outside of 
the bar, I suppose with a view to take some water. Shortly 
afterwards I saw Mr. L. making towards that part of the 
House where Mr. G. was. He approached Mr. G., who was 
standing at the entrance to the bar, and struck him with a cane. 
Mr. G.'s cane was instantly handed him, and he was making 
again towards Mr. L., when there was a loud call to order for 
the first time; this was instantly repeated by the Speaker. I 
laid hold of Mr. G., sundry persons threw themselves between 
him and Mr. L., and Mr. G. instantly retired and took his seat. 

" William Gordon. 

" Mr. Elmendorfs Testimony. 
" From my seat, which is the second in the third row, almost 
directly behind Mr. Lyon's, which is the middle seat in the 
front row, I observed him in the same posture immediately 
before I heard the first blow of a cane ; upon hearing which, I 
observed him still sitting, with his arm in the position of cover- 
ing his head and warding off blows, and the other in feeling, 
as I thought, for a cane on the floor, beside or before him. I 
saw Mr. Griswold at this time on the open floor directly before 
him, beating him with all the strength and dexterity apparently 
in his power, with a cane of the stoutest kind of American made 
hickory, and repeating his blows as fast as I thought he could 



296 MATTHEW LYON 

make them. Under this pressure, Mr. Lyon in a defenceless 
state, made out of his seat side-ways, being hemmed in before 
and behind by the desks and seats, so that it was wholly out of 
his power to escape a single blow, or to interrupt Mr. Griswold 
in the act of beating him. Immediately, I myself, for one, 
rose in my seat, and loudly and repeatedly called out to the 
Chair for order. I heard the same call from different parts of 
the House; but I did not observe nor hear any effort from the 
Speaker to restore it, or any personal attempt by any one near 
to interfere and prevent the attack. On the contrary, I think I 
distinctly heard the Speaker reply that the House had not yet 
been called to order, as a reason for not interfering at all. As 
soon as Mr. Lyon had got out of the row of seats, he made 
towards Mr. Griswold, and made every effort to close with 
him, as it appeared to me. Mr. Griswold, on his part, 
avoided this, by holding him off with his left arm, stepping 
back, and continuing to beat Mr. Lyon with his cane,^ as 
before, until in this way they both got to the fire-place, to the 
left of the Speaker's chair. I then heard the noise of the tongs, 
and immediately after saw them have hold of each other, and 
Mr. Griswold's cane falling out of his hand. Soon after they 
both fell, having hold of each other, Mr. Griswold partly upon 
Mr. Lyon. At this time I got to the place where they were 
engaged, and called out to part them. I heard the same cry 
from behind the chair, and I also heard the opposite cry from 
others, not to part them. Mr. Havens and myself each took 
hold of Mr. Griswold's legs, and, I think, together, drew him 
off from Mr. Lyon. At the same time, I think, I saw others 
have hold of Mr. Lyon. When the Speaker observed Mr. 
Havens and myself taking hold of Mr. Griswold, he, with ap- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 297 

parent warmth, as if thereby to prevent our interfering, called 
out, in substance, as nearly as I can recollect, ' What! take hold 
of a man by the legs! that is no way to take hold of him.' Not- 
withstanding, I persevered, and, I think, Mr. Havens assisted 
me, in drawing Mr. Griswold apart from Mr. Lyon. Mr. Lyon 
went direct from that place to his seat, where he got a small 
cane, and went from thence south of the bar, where I saw him 
and Mr. Griswold soon after meeting, and Mr. Lyon making 
up to him, Mr. Griswold retiring from Mr. Lyon, and Mr. 
Lyon making a blow at him with his cane, which Mr. Griswold, 
I think, received on his arm or shoulder. 

" The loud cry of ' order ' from all parts of the House, and 
from the chair, here put an end to the afTray. 

" Mr. Stanford's Testimony. 

" When the riot commenced in the Hall of Congress, on the 
morning of the 15th instant, between Mr. Griswold and Mr. 
Lyon, it was about twenty or thirty minutes after eleven 
o'clock. Prayers were over, but the House was not yet called 
to order. Sitting in my chair, I was attentively reading some 
letters I had just received. In an instant, the sudden bustle 
arrested my notice. Not having observed either of the parties 
enter the Hall, I then saw Mr. Griswold on the area of the 
floor, with an apparently heavy stick, making a blow (perhaps 
not the first) at Mr. Lyon, who was between his desk and chair, 
in an half rising position. This blow, I think, he received on 
his left arm or shoulder, and a second as he was disengaging 
himself from among the desks and chairs. Once possessing 
the floor, he essayed to join Mr. Griswold, who evaded him by 
a retrograde step, and a third blow, which fell upon Mr. Lyon's 



298 MATTHEW LYON 

head, his hat being ofif. Then beating back a little to the left 
of the Speaker's desk as Mr. Griswold approached, repeating 
his strokes, Mr. Lyon again attempted to close in with him, 
but failed, and made suddenly behind the Speaker's desk, 
which, with the crowding members, for a moment intercepted 
my view. Then instantly again I saw Mr. Lyon with a pair of 
tongs elevated for a stroke at Mr. Griswold, which seemed to 
be somewhat parried, so as not to be fully made. A collision, 
I think, of the stick, tongs and persons now took place, Mr. 
Griswold about this time lost his stick; thus clung, they came 
down together. The fall, I rather think, I did not see, from 
the intervening members ; but when down, they appeared to be 
grappled about the head and shoulders, and Mr. Griswold 
rather uppermost. The confusion of the House was great, and 
the cry of ' Part them ' pretty general. Thus, while some gen- 
tlemen were disentangling their hands, others had Mr. Gris- 
wold by the legs, and were pulling him away, which was 
effected. 

" The Speaker, standing on the steps of his desk, said that 
it was either unfair or ungentlemanly to take a man thus by the 
legs. General McDowell then observed, that he (the Speaker) 
had acted his part in the business; and the Speaker asking what 
he said. General McDowell repeated his observation, and the 
Speaker answered, what could he do, the House was not called 
to order, he could not help the event. The General replied he 
supposed he could not. 

" The parties having been separated, and left at large, they 
casually met again after a small space, at the south water-stand 
without the bar, when Mr. Lyon, as soon as he appeared to 
discover who it was, raised his stick, which he had got hold of 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 299 

in the interval, and struck Mr. Griswold on the shoulder or 
arm. The stroke was quite light, being hastily made, and with 
a stick not very large. Mr. Griswold then beat back to the 
entrance of the bar, where some one, I think Mr. Sitgreaves, 
ran, and met him with a similar or the same stick, which he had 
lost in the first rencontre. Mr. Lyon, also, after striking, 
stepped back from the water-stand, elevated his stick, and stood 
in an attitude of defence. Now it was that the Speaker called 
to order, and no other conflict ensued. Mr. Griswold 
presently returned to his seat, and Mr. Lyon remained at the 
water-stand. 

" CASE OF GRISWOLD AND LYON. 

" The House proceeded to consider the report of the Com- 
mittee of Privileges, of the twentieth instant; and the same 
being again read in the words following, to wit: 

" ' The Committee of Privileges, to whom was referred a 
resolution in the following words : 

" ' Resolved, That Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon, mem- 
bers of this House, for riotous and disorderly behavior, com- 
mitted in the House, be expelled therefrom,' with instructions 
to report the evidence in writing, have, according to the order 
of the House, proceeded to take the evidence, which they here- 
with report; and they report further, that it is their opinion 
that the said resolution be disagreed to." 

" Mr. Giles thought it would comport more with the dignity 
of the House to decide this business without going into a Com- 
mittee of the Whole, as he believed every one had made up his 
mind upon it. If gentlemen intended by the course hereto- 
fore taken to raise the dignity of the House, he thought they 



300 MATTHEW LYON 

had deceived themselves; for he beHeved the House was never 
in a less dignified attitude than during that discussion. 

" The question on agreeing to the report of the committee, 
which recommended a disagreement to the resolution for an 
expulsion of the two members was then taken, and stood — yeas 
y^i, nays 21. 

" Mr. R. Williams proposed a resolution in the following 
words : 

" ' Resolved, That Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon for 
riotous and disorderly behavior in this House, are highly cen- 
surable, and that they be reprimanded by the Speaker in the 
presence of this House.' 

" And the yeas and nays were taken, and stood, yeas 47, 
nays 48." 

Lyon was not expelled; Griswold was not even censured. 
The spasm of virtue which broke out among the Federalist 
sticklers for the proprieties when Mr. Lyon was the oflFender, 
and the purists and saints were bent on purging the temple of 
the Democratic sinner, evaporated into thin air as soon as 
Griswold rushed in with his stick and proved the arguments 
of his friends to be the idle vaporings of humbug and false 
pretenses. The purists and saints became the apologists and 
upholders of Griswold, that most flagrant violator of law and 
order who has ever cut loose as bully and bruiser on the floor 
of the American Congress. 

A history of Congressional brawls, fisticuffs and duels would 
be replete with many tragic, some amusing, and numerous dis- 
graceful scenes, as a glance at a few of them will disclose. 

Andrew Jackson elected to Congress from Tennessee in 
1796, and soon transferred to the Senate, challenged his col- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3OI 

league Senator William Cocke to fight with pistols. Com- 
promised. 

Senator James Gunn, of Georgia, in 1796 challenged Abra- 
ham Baldwin, a member of Congress from the same State, to 
fight a duel. Senator Frederick Frelinghuysen, of New 
Jersey, bore the challenge. Baldwin laid the whole corre- 
spondence before the House, saying, he was opposed to duel- 
ling. A committee was appointed with Madison at its head, 
and Gunn and Frelinghuysen apologized. In his apology 
Gunn got off a parting shot at Baldwin by observing, " that 
though the place in which Mr. Baldwin has thought proper to 
disclose this transaction is quite unexpected, it shall be to him 
an inviolable sanctuary." Apologies received were satisfac- 
tory to the dignity of the House. 

In 1819 Senator Armisted C. Mason, of Virginia, the friend of 
Matthew Lyon, fought a bloodthirsty duel at Bladensburg with 
his cousin Col. John McCarty of the same State. Mason was 
killed at the first fire, and profound feeling of national horror 
was aroused. At an earlier day John C. Calhoun, of South 
Carolina, and Thomas P. Grosvenor, of New York, had a diffi- 
culty in the House, and a duel was narrowly prevented. 
Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, and John Randolph, of 
Virginia, had a Congressional misunderstanding, and the latter 
challenged the former, who declined to submit the question to 
the code duello. When Henry Clay, of Kentucy, was Secre- 
tary of State under John Quincy Adams, John Randolph made 
a speech in the Senate denouncing Adams and Clay in terms 
of unparalleled severity. Clay challenged Randolph, and 
Colonel Benton, who was second to the latter, has a very in- 
teresting account of the fight in his "Thirty Years' View in the 



302 MATTHEW LYON 

United States Senate." Colonel Benton himself had a terrible 
hand to hand pistol and sword fight with Andrew Jackson at 
Nashville, next killed Mr. Lucas, of Missouri, in a duel, and 
afterwards came near being killed himself on the floor of the 
Senate by the irrepressible Henry S. Foote, Senator from Mis- 
sissippi. " Let the assasin shoot," exclaimed Old Bullion, ad- 
vancing upon his foe, as Governor Foote during a stormy de- 
bate drew out his pistol and was leveling it at the Missourian, 
when several other Senators rushed between the two and pre- 
vented a collision. Governor Foote at a subsequent day had 
a quarrel in the Senate with Col. John C. Fremont, of Califor- 
nia. The dispute was renewed in the lobby, when Foote 
knocked down the Pathfinder. On another occasion P'oote 
and Jeflferson Davis, the two Senators from Mississippi, had a 
fight at the breakfast table in Mr. Price's boarding house on 
Capitol Hill. William H. Crawford, of Georgia, killed his 
man in one duel, and in another was wounded by Gov. John C. 
Clark, of Georgia. In 1838 Representatives Turney, of Ten- 
nessee, and Bell of the same State, had a free fight on the floor 
of the House^ In 1840 Henry A. Wise and George W. Hop- 
kins, both of Virginia, got into a wordy war in the House. 
Jesse A. Bynam crossed over to Rice Garland's seat, and when 
in his hearing insulted him directly. Garland struck Bynam a 
heavy blow. " They had a fisticifT bout till they were parted," 
says John Quincy Adams in his Memoirs and Diary, and adds, 
" There was an electrical shock of confusion in the House." 
The Speaker called to order " and," the ironical ex-President 
concludes, " the lamentation speeches began." The same Mr. 
Bynam, of North Carolina, and Daniel Jenifer, from Maryland, 
subsequently fought a duel. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3O3 

In 1841 Representative John McKeon, of New York, spoke 
in favor of striking out the appropriation for the Mission to 
Naples. Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, and John Stanley, of 
North Carolina, took part in the debate. Stanley called Wise 
a liar, who crossed over to the former's seat and struck him. 
A fight ensued on the floor. A rush, confusion, chaos for a 
few minutes, and then a call to order. Wise rose and apolo- 
gized to the House, but said he could not brook the insult. 
Stanley said he had no apology to offer, and that he would have 
whipped Wise if let alone. In 1844 Congressmen Thomas L, 
Clingman, of North Carolina, and William L. Yancey, of Ala- 
bama, fought a duel; after an exchange of shots the affair was 
settled. The saddest duel since that of Mason and McCarty 
in 1819 was the one in 1838 between Representative Jonathan 
Cilley, of Maine, the schoolmate and friend of Longfellow and 
Hawthorne, and Representative William J. Graves, of Ken- 
tucky. Cilley was killed and popular indignation ran high 
against those who had anything to do with the fatal meeting. 
Indeed I may say that the three fatal duels of Burr and Hamil- 
ton, McCarty and Mason, and Graves and Cilley. contributed 
more powerfully than all the rest together to render the odious 
practice unpopular, and to do away with the " erudite dis- 
crimination of a hair trigger." On one occasion Gen. Andrew 
Jackson challenged Gen. Winfield Scott, who declined to fight. 
On another (1832) General Samuel Houston, of Texas fame, 
ferociously beat Representative Wm. Stanberry, of Ohio, with 
a stick, on Pennsylvania avenue. 

The nearest approach to Griswold's attack on Lyon in 1798 
which has ever occurred in Congress was the attack on Senator 
Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, on the floor of the Senate 



304 MATTHEW LYON 

by Representative Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, on 
the 22d of May, 1856. The Senate was not in session, but a 
few members were in their seats when Brooks attacked Sumner 
with a cane, and beat him with all the severity which Griswold 
had employed against Lyon. Sumner, though a large man, 
did not display Lyon's pugnacity (perhaps he was disabled and 
could not), but the attack on him by Mr. Brooks, although Mr. 
Sumner had dealt savagely in debate with Senator Butler, the 
uncle of Brooks, was justly and very generally denounced as 
an outrage. During the same year John Sherman, of Ohio, 
and John M. Wright, of Tennessee, had a scuffle on the floor of 
the House. Seizing a box of wafers Sherman attempted to 
throw a handful of them into Wright's face, who on his part 
dealt Sherman a blow with his fist on the head. The latter 
attempted to draw his pistol, but before he could do so mem- 
bers rushed between and separated them. In 1858 Galusha A. 
Grow, of Pennsylvania, and Lawrence M. Keitt, of South 
Carolina, had a regular slugging match in Congress. The 
conflict spread to others, and between thirty and forty members 
were fighting fiercely in front of the Speaker's desk. Gen. 
William Barkesdale, of Mississippi, who afterwards fell at 
Gettysburg, rushed at Mr. John Covode, of Pennsylvania, who 
seized a heavy spittoon and was about to throw it at Barkes- 
dale, but at that moment somebody grasped the latter by the 
hair of the head, which proved to be a wig and came off in the 
fierce swoop, leaving him perfectly bald, with pate glittering 
in the gaslight. Everyone was moved to laughter, when the 
Sergeant-at-Arms, with his uplifted mace and helped by his 
posse, finally became able to stem the heady fight. " Last 
night we had a battle royal in the House," says Alexander H. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 305 

Stephens in a letter to his brother, dated February 5, 1858. 
" Thirty men at least," he writes, " were engaged in the fisti- 
cuff. Fortunately no weapons were used; if any had been on 
hand it would probably have been a bloody one." Since the 
civil war not one duel that I can recall has taken place as a 
result of Congressional wrangling. Perhaps people got 
enough fighting at that dreadful period to last for a long time 
to come. Laird, of Nebraska, and Cobb, of Indiana, fought in 
the lobby in 1886, and Congressman Lowe, of Alabama, chal- 
lenged warrior John Logan, Senator from Illinois, in 1879 ^or 
words spoken in debate, but the challenge was not accepted. 
Fists and cudgels, disgraceful as they are among our en- 
lightened statesmen, are not after all so bad as hair-triggers 
and carbines. A black eye or bloody nose is better than a 
funeral with widow and orphans. 

The first Congressional battle has never been eclipsed in 
celebrity by any subsequent conflict in the annals of Congress. 
Lyon and Griswold hold the ribbon as the most celebrated 
Hotspurs who have yet entered the Congressional arena. 



3o6 MATTHEW LYON 



CHAPTER VI. 

PERSONAL WAR OF ADAMS AGAINST LYON — THE ALIEN AND 
SEDITION LAWS AIMED AT THE VERMONTER — HAMILTON AT 
THE BACK DOOR OF THE ADMINISTRATION — THE X Y Z IM- 
POSTURE — WAR WITH FRANCE IMMINENT — HAMILTON DE- 
STROYS HIMSELF BY INTRIGUE — LYON, LIKE JOHN HAMPDEN, 
BECOMES TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE — HIS INDICTMENT, TRIAL 
AND CONVICTION — RE-ELECTION WHILE IN PRISON AND TRI- 
UMPHANT RETURN TO CONGRESS. 

'T^HE reader of the last chapter could scarcely fail to be im- 
pressed with the truth of Jefferson's vivid account of the 
afflicting- persecutions visited upon the Democratic minority 
by the Federalists in Congress during the administration of 
Mr. Adams. Matthew Lyon, accustomed to speak in the lan- 
guage of no master, raised the standard of revolt, and, as Chap- 
lain Ashbel Green worded it, he refused to be made by the 
" dominant Federal party the butt of their ridicule."^ 

Tlie fracas with Griswold who, the Rev. Dr. Green asserts, 
was " confessedly the aggressor,"^ and the failure of the de- 
termined effort of the Federalists to expel Lyon, proved the 
first check to the brow-beaters. But a more important result 
of that failure was its effect upon the President. It roused 
the bull dog in John Adams, who by nature was quite as com- 
bative as Matthew Lvon himself. The President had taken a 



« " The Life of Ashbel Greea," V. D. M.. p. 267. 
^ Ibid, same page. 




JOHN ADAMS. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 307 

dislike to the Vermont member ever since his outspoken re- 
marks, at the preceding session, in opposition to Congressmen 
trooping through the streets to the Executive Mansion to make 
their obeisance and answer to his Majesty's speech. The 
President's vanity was wounded by Lyon's pungent description 
of the ceremony as " a boyish piece of business." Cobbett 
was let loose upon the offender, Chipman became a whisperer 
of forgotten gossips, the Griswold incident followed, and all 
to no purpose the Federal hue and cry was raised against the 
Vermont Democrat. 

After the mortifying failure of the dominant party to cast 
him out of Congress, Lyon became a thorn in the President's 
side, an enemy who must be dealt with summarily by John 
Adams himself. A presidential election was approaching, the 
contest might be close — nay, might reach the House of Rep- 
resentatives for ultimate decision; who could know that this 
aggressive Democrat might not have the vote of a State at his 
command, who give assurance that he might not be able to 
write across the House of Adams — Ichabod, thy glory has de- 
parted? Out of the fear of such grave possible contingencies 
were ushered into life those misbegotten twins the Alien and 
Sedition Laws. Lyon was an Irishman, Lyon was a bold, 
outspoken opponent of the Federal party and all its measures. 
He must be gotten rid of in one or the other of the two nets. 
If he escaped the perils of Scylla for aliens, the sedition drag- 
net must surely wreck him on Charybdis. Mr. Jefiferson in- 
clined to the opinion that those odious measures were framed 
primarily to catch Albert Gallatin and Mr. Volney, but Lyon 
was the first man arrested, and I am persuaded that he was the 
principal person aimed at by President Adams. Colonel Lyon 



308 MATTHEW LYON 

remarked to General Stevens Thompson Mason, Senator from 
Virginia, who was sitting- at his side during the vote in the 
House on the passage of the Sedition act, that he was con- 
vinced the measure was intended to catch members of Con- 
gress, and most probably would be brought to bear upon him- 
self first victim of all." And it happened precisely as he 
then predicted. 

Once having made up his mind upon any subject, John 
Adams was not to be deterred from his purpose, if it was pos- 
sible to carry it out. Advice was rejected, and advisers were 
apt to be snubbed for their pains. Bills against the citizen, 
bills against aliens, some of them, like Kosciuscko, Volney, 
Dr. Cooper and Matthew Lyon, among the most patriotic 
adopted Americans, and bills defining and affixing penalties 
of sedition in terms which made even Englishmen, whom it 
was meant to help, start at the wrench they gave to civil liberty, 
were forced through Congress with whip and spur by the blind 
partisans of an infuriated President, such as Dana, Griswold, 
Sewall, Harper, Bayard, Dayton, and their fellow madmen in 
the Senate. These congeners of despotism forgot the pro- 
phecy : " They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the 
whirlwind." Even the London newspapers expressed as- 
tonishment at John Adams's rule or ruin excesses. " I en- 
close you a column," writes Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor 
of Caroline, " cut out of a London paper, to show you that the 
English, though charmed with our making their enemies our 
enemies/' (the French), " yet blush and weep over our sedition 



o Letter of Colonel Lyon to General Mason, from Vergennes Jail, 
October 14, 1798. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3O9 

law."" One of the curious features of those monarchial 
days was the absurd custom of sending forward plethoric, 
Oriental addresses to the President from various cities and 
towns throughout the country, fumes of flattery importing 
nothing but servile adulation, and couched in language which 
would make a king blush for his sycophants. 

" The apswers of Mr. Adams to his addresses," exclaims 
the thoughtful Madison, " form the most grotesque scene in 
the tragi-comedy acting by the Government. They present 
not only the grossest contradictions to the maxims, measures 
and language of his predecessor, and the real principles and 
interests of his constituents, but to himself. He is verifying 
completely the last feature in the character drawn of him by 
Dr. Franklin, however his title may stand to the two first, 
'Always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes wholly 
out of his senses.' " 

Can it be possible that President Adams regarded all this 
speechifying and addressing him as anything more than mere 
echoes of rhetoric? Perhaps he took it seriously. He told 
General Washington that it afforded him great comfort, and 
was " very precious " to him.^ Echoes of praise to one's 
face are a poor substitute for the addresses of orators. But 
after all, are not nine-tenths or more of congressional speeches, 
pulpit oratory and platform lectures, leaving out of view the 
turgid utterances of flatterers and courtiers entirely, the mere 
counterfeits of true eloquence? Are they not the echoes of 
real things — not real things themselves, — vanishing voices full 
of emptiness, or " of sound and fury signifying nothing? " 



« " Jefferson's Works," IV, 260. 

6 " Works of John Adams," VIII, 573. 



310 MATTHEW LYON 

But real speeches, no one except an orator makes them, no 
one save a great orator clothes them with life, and no one but 
a good man can be a great orator. Quintilian says it. and 
OuintiHan is right, nullus orator nisi vir bonus. I am truly 
glad that those vagabond addresses to our Presidents, " ap- 
probatory," as Mr. Adams styles them, and the congressional 
street pageants, against which Matthew Lyon lifted up 
his solitary voice in the heyday of the old Federal party, as 
well as the monarchy-breeding birthdays, have passed into 
limbo, with much other rubbish that then encumbered the 
earth. 

It is doubtful whether even so faction-ridden, narrow-minded 
a body as the Fifth Congress could have been brought up to 
the starting point in the race to muzzle the press and annihilate 
the liberty of the person, if Alexander Hamilton had not com- 
bined with John Adams to subvert the Constitution by the 
/ passage of the alien and sedition laws. Hamilton was too clear 

headed a man not to perceive the dangers ahead; but he had 
ulterior designs of his own to accomplish, and in spite of his 
known dislike of Adams, he now joined hands wdth that furious 
gentleman in the dance of death. Centralization of Govern- 
ment on an English model was his dream, and the alien and 
sedition acts as means to an end, coarse and brutal means 
which shocked Hamilton's keener sense of choice of weapons, 
the scimetar, not the battle-axe being his preference, recon- 
ciled antipathies and forced the game. The headlong John 
Adams sometimes startled the shrewd Alexander Hamilton, 
but on went the dance, until locked arms the merry pair dis- 
appeared over the yawning precipice. " I have this moment 
seen a bill brought into the Senate," said Hamilton in a letter 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3II 

to Wolcott, June 29, 1798, " Entitled 'A bill to define more 
particularly the crime of Treason, etc' There are provisions 
in this bill which, according to a cursory view, appear to me 
highly exceptionable, and such as, more than anything else, 
may endanger civil war."* 

Hamilton knew the full meaning of that profound observa- 
tion of Madison, the father of the Constitution, " Perhaps it is 
a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be 
charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from 
abroad." How true it was then when there was an astute 
Hamilton to work up his countrymen over " danger, real or 
pretended, from abroad;" and alas, how true it is at this very 
day when our would-be Hamiltons are endeavoring to kindle 
a like flame which imperceptibly may spread into a destruc- 
tive conflagration. A war with France was the royal road 
to the realization of the Hamilton dream. Our war to-day 
in Asia sheds a lurid light on the long cherished Monroe doc- 
trine, and the farewell address of Washington becomes in such 
a presence a solecism and solemn mockery of words. How 
subtly Hamilton played his hand the memoirs of the various 
worthies of that day clearly reveal. Monroe was recalled from 
France, and grossly traduced by Adams and Pickering. New 
ministers or special envoys were despatched to Talleyrand and 
the mad Directory. Pinckney, a Hamilton man, Marshall, a 
Hamilton man, and Gerry, an Adams man, vice Dana another 
Hamilton man, declined, were the trio of envoys sent out to 
France to pick a quarrel, rather than compose strife and restore 
harmony between the two countries. Hamilton strenuously 
sought to prevent the selection of Elbridge Gerry, the only 

fl " Works of Hamilton," VI, 307. 



312 MATTHEW LYON 

man of the three not under his influence, and was infinitely 
disgusted at the obstinacy of John Adams, never more for- 
tunately for the welfare of the country brought into play, in 
insisting upon Gerry's appointment, and drawing from the 
flush hand of his adversary one of his three best trumps. 
While Pinckney and Marshall were strong anti-Gallicans, 
Gerry felt lingering regard for our ally and mainstay in the 
war of Independence. 

The French government temporized with the envoys, and 
delayed their recognition. During this period of suspense, 
Messieurs X, Y and Z, (Hottinguer, Bellamy and Hauteval,) 
three enterprising swindlers whom Pinckney and Marshall 
credited to Talleyrand, but whom Talleyrand indignantly re- 
pudiated, and demanded the names of the culprits as soon as 
he heard of their operations, clandestinely opened secret nego- 
tiations with our envoys. This was a windfall to Hamilton. 
No sooner were the envoys' despatches received, containing 
particulars of the confidence game, before his hectoring partisan 
in the State Department, Timothy Pickering, set foolish John 
Adams into a towering rage, and laid a train of combustibles 
before Congress, by sending the despatches to both Houses 
with the most incendiary communication ever received by the 
law making body from a cabinet officer in the whole history 
of the United States. Hamilton at the back door had read 
the X, Y, Z despatches as soon as Adams; indeed it is probable 
that he was often more the President than the man occupying 
that office, as his sway over the Cabinet was greater, and 
through those faithless men he knew everything and directed 
many things that transpired in Executive circles. 

The miserable impostors, W, X, Y and Z, whose farrago 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 313 

adroitly worked up by Pickering, came within a hair's breadth 
of precipitating- a war between France and the United States, 
first enjoined inviolable secrecy upon our envoys, next claimed 
for their pseudo-diplomacy the approval of Talleyrand and sanc- 
tion of the Directory, as the best channel of approach, and then 
proceeded to submit, among other things, the following de- 
mands, which the envoys told them they had no power to 
grant : 

1st. A loan by the United States to the Directory, as a con- 
dition precedent to the suspension of the order to capture 
American vessels; 

2d. A bribe of fifty thousand pounds sterling for the French 
Ministry and four of their corps." 

Pinckney and Marshall soon left Paris in disgust, and the 
Anglo-American party were encouraged by this step which 
the two envoys said they were almost compelled by the French 
to take, to expect war as the outcome of such a breach of 
hospitality. Hamilton was furious with Gerry for staying be- 
hind, and his faction opened the flood-gates of abuse upon that 
virtuous man, as they had done before upon the upright James 
Monroe. Had Gerry come back with the other envoys, war 
indeed would have followed. But the French government was 
not blind to the schemes of the English party, and Talleyrand 
was quite a match at intrigue for Hamilton. Meantime Hamil- 
ton was in the ascendant at home. The publication of the X, 
Y, Z despatches, and Pickering's firebrand, roused patriotic 
Americans of both parties throughout the whole Union to a 
pitch of warlike feeling against France, such as long years 
afterwards swept over the North against the South, when 

^ " Life and Works of John Adams," VIII, 568. 



314 MATTHEW LYON 

General Beauregard, upon the approach of the fleet secretly 
despatched from New York by Mr. Seward, opened fire upon 
Fort Sumter. A provisional army was voted by Congress, 
and General Washington was appointed by the President, 
Commander-in-Chief. In the interchange of views between 
Mr. Adams and General Washington entire harmony prevailed, 
until, as Adams stoutly maintained, and later publications of 
their writings would appear to make probable, Hamilton's 
ambition to become the practical head of the army as First 
Major-General under Washington, and more especially as In- 
spector-General of the whole of the forces of the United States, 
was brought to bear in a secret manner upon General Wash- 
ington, and made that venerable man a partisan of Hamilton. 
Then Adams began to get restive. He himself had out- 
Heroded Herod in vociferation for war, and for the passage 
of the alien and sedition laws, and alarmed thoughtful men by 
what Colonel Lyon truthfully described as his " continual grasp 
for power," and " unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp." But 
Hamilton as dictator sorely chafed the President. 

Talleyrand, through one of his agents, Pichon, opened com- 
munications with William Vans Murray, American Minister 
to the Hague, and Elbridge Gerry informed President Adams 
that Talleyrand on behalf of the Directory had assured him of 
their unqualified willingness to receive any ambassador sent 
by the United States to France, with a view to a lasting peace 
between the two nations. The X, Y, Z imposture, which had 
thrown the United States into a war fever, in the light of these 
overtures, began to lose its potency. General Washington, al- 
though a true friend of Hamilton, put private friendship 
behind him whenever it interfered with patriotic duty. Joel 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3I5 

Barlow wrote Washington a frank and manly letter from Paris, 
telling him in the most positive manner that France wanted 
peace with this country. Although he had never received a 
letter from Barlow before, and was inclined to regard him in an 
unfriendly light, and although some friction had been created 
between John Adams and himself in relation to Hamilton, 
Washington immediately sent Barlow's letter to the President, 
urged its most dispassionate consideration, and ofifered to reply 
to it in any terms which President Adams might dictate. I 
can recall few actions in Washington's whole life, in view of 
all the circumstances, which reveal the reserved strength and 
majesty of his patriotism more strikingly than his conduct at 
this trying moment. The Hamilton faction had once swayed 
him in the Edmund Randolph affair from that inflexible im- 
partiality which was habitual to him; in the present crisis 
with France he had arrayed himself on the side of Hamilton 
and against the President, but when the cause of his country 
was put in the balance, all else became insignificant, and Wash- 
ington sheathed his sword, and advised Adams to make one 
more stand for peace with France. 

Hamilton often played too fine a game of petty politics for 
a statesman of his calibre. A few weeks before the expiration 
of the political year in New York, he wrote to John jay. 
Governor of that State, May 7, 1800, urging him to override 
the popular will, as expressed at the ballot box, by a stretch 
of arbitrary power which would disgrace a ward pohtician. 
The people of New York had just elected a new Democratic 
Legislature for the express purpose of choosing through that 
agency presidential electors. Having submitted the choice to 
the people and lost, Hamilton wanted Jay to reconvene the 



3l6 MATTHEW LYON 

rejected Federalist Legislature to perform the duty of appoint- 
ing presidential electors which the people had taken away 
from them, and given to others at the polls. But in the opinion 
of Hamilton the defeat of Jefferson as President of the United 
States would be more important than the laws of decency or 
the voice of the people at the ballot box, and he advised the 
Governor to take this despotic, or as he was pleased to call 
it, " legal and constitutional step, to prevent an atheist in re- 
ligion, and a fanatic in politics, from getting possession oi 
the helm of state."" Governor Jay, as Hamilton knew, 
was a very religious man, and a thorough Federalist in politics, 
but unfortunately for the present purpose, he was also a high 
toned, honorable man. The adroit appeal to him was fruitless. 
"Atheist " and " fanatic " are words nowhere to be found in 
the Constitution or the laws, and in no sense could they be 
applied with justice to Mr. Jefferson. Von Hoist and Bryce, 
and other foreign bookmakers, Henry Cabot Lodge and Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, and others of our own political pamphleteers, 
have held up Alexander Hamilton to admiration as the exemplar 
of most of the civic virtues, and easily first of American states- 
men; but the future historian will revise the words of these 
eulogists, and draw the character of Hamilton in colors more 
sober and subdued. What a contrast he presents to Governor 
Jay in this proposal to stifle the voice of the people. The only 
notice the Governor deigned to take of Mr. Hamilton's un- 
scrupulous request w-as the following lofty rebuke endorsed 
upon his letter: " Proposing a measure for party purposes, 
which I think it would not become me to adopt."" 

<» " Works of Alexander Hamilton," VI, 438. 

^ " Life of John Jay," by his Son William Jay, I, 414. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 317 

President Adams, after pouring forth one tirade after an- 
other against France, and after having gone beyond Hamilton 
in fastening the alien and sedition laws upon the country, at 
last regained his senses, and opened his eyes to the fact that 
Hamilton had been running his great ofBce by aid of his 
cabinet, while he himself had been playing Ajax defying the 
lightning, locking up Matthew Lyon in jail, and 'driving 
Frenchmen by the ship load back to Europe. After he heard 
from Gerry, read the denials of Talleyrand, beheld the fine 
Machiavellian hand of Hamilton coming between him and the 
appointing power to the army^ felt its coercive influence almost 
to a rupture between himself and the father of his country, 
the old Braintree hero waked up in earnest, and resolved to 
be the pack-horse no longer of the cunning men who sur- 
rounded him." The climax was reached when Washington in- 
tervened to compel the appointment of Hamilton over Knox 
and Pinckney. " There has been too much intrigue in this 
business with General Washington and me/' exclaimed Mr. 
Adams; "if I shall ultimately be the dupe of it, I am much 
mistaken in myself."^ 

In a short time the explosion came. Without consulting a 
single member of his cabinet, for he now distrusted them, with- 
out a word of warning to any Federalist, the President nomi- 
nated William Vans Murray, Minister Plenipotentiary to 



oin a letter to James Lloyd, February 1.7, 1815, John Adams, re- 
ferring to Hamilton, wrote thus: "Washington had compelled me 
to promote * * * the most restless, impatient, artful, indefatigable, 
and unprincipled intriguer in the United States, if not in the world, 
to be second in command under himself." " Life and Works of John 
Adams," X. 124. 

^Ibid, VIIL 588. 



3l8 MATTHEW LYON 

France, and by a single stroke of his pen scattered into tlie 
region kites the warhke schemes of Hamilton, the would-be 
Oliver Cromwell, and of all the anti-Gallicans and Anglo- 
Americans in the country. The nomination fell like a thunder- 
bolt upon the Sena'te. The Federalists induced the President 
to add Patrick Henry and Oliver Ellsworth as joint envoys 
with Murray. But Hamilton was down and out. Wonderful 
man that he was, surpassed by no one of his day as a statesman 
but by Jefferson, and equalled by no one since as a political 
economist but by Calhoun, Alexander Hamilton was yet an 
intriguing politician whose limitations were greatly increased 
by inordinate ambition, and a despotic, and sometimes an un- 
scrupulous temper. Strange was the drift of events by which 
he became the only Federalist in the United States who ad- 
vocated the choice of Jefferson as President, and that too in 
the self-same year in which he had opposed his election on 
the ground that he was " an atheist in religion and a fanatic 
in politics." But it was the New York politician, bent on a 
party triumph at any cost over his hated rival Aaron Burr, 
who wrote that disreputable letter. He threw off the habits 
of a trickster, and rose to the stature of a patriot a few months 
later, when he advised the Federalist marplots in Congress 
to save their party from annihilation, and themselves from dis- 
grace, by voting for Jefferson and against the Cataline Burr for 
President. Not one of them had the sense to take Hamilton's 
advice, although a Massachusetts Senator, Mr. Lodge, a few 
years ago, ignoring the facts of history, made a futile attempt 
to attribute Jefferson's election to the vote of James A. Bayard, 
of Delaware, in blissful ignorance of the fact that Bayard did 
not vote for Jefferson at all, but in the thirty-six ballots of 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 319 

the House voted thirty-five times for Burr, and when the final 
ballot was taken he put in a blank vote.** Not the least credit 
for the defeat of Burr is due to a single Federalist in Congress, 
except Lewis R. Morris who was absent when the last ballot 
was taken; not the remotest to any Federalist in the United 
States, with the solitary exception of Alexander Hamilton. 
He deserves much honor for that great service, but the chief 
credit belongs to Matthew Lyon, as F. S. Drake* and Charles 
Lanman^ have said truthfully, and as the ungarbled facts of 
history abundantly establish. 

When the alien and sedition bills were under discussion in 
the House, the Federalists adopted their usual haughty tactics, 
and with insolent demeanor answered the constitutional argu- 
ments of the Democrats against the measures by coughs, 
laughter and personalities. On one occasion when the 
minority tried to amend an obnoxious feature of one of the 
bills, Harper, Bayard and Speaker Dayton, under the plea 
of urgency, compelled the Democrats to give way by lung 
power and brow beating, and demanded a viva voce vote. 
Lyon took the floor in the face of a storm of invective from 
the majority side, and demanded that every man be put on 
record, that it might be known to all the world who were the 
friends and who the enemies of the Constitution. As defeat 
was certain, Gallatin, Macon and other Democrats asked Lyon 
to withdraw his demand for the ayes and nays, but unawed 
by the clamor of the Federalists, and unmoved by the request 
of his less unyielding Democratic friends, Lyon was inflexible, 

o Letter of James A. Bayard in " Niles's Register," November 16, 
1822. 

^ " Dictionary of American Biography," p. 571. 
c " Dictionary of Congress," p. 368. 



320 



MATTHEW LYON 



Stood out against all short cuts to despotism, and like John 
Hampden, when Charles the First sent to collect the ship 
money tax, refused to pay tribute to arrogant power, Hampden 
by a single farthing, Lyon by a single concession. He re- 
newed his demand for the ayes and nays, but on a call of the 
House the Speaker ruled that one-fifth of the members not 
having risen, the motion was lost. Inch by inch he fought 
the Federalists, and I cannot help thinking that Lyon, rather 
than Gallatin, in this great constitutional battle, was the real 
leader of the minority. The meagre reports of the debates 
at that day give no satisfactory insight to the true situation 
in the House. There were but two or three reporters of the 
proceedings, and all save one of them for a time were dropped 
by the Federalists. In the days of the venerable Charles 
Thompson, the old " perpetual secretary " of the Continental 
Congress, the proceedings were better reported, and in our 
own day, the shorthand art and enlarged facilities have still 
more fully increased the accuracy of the Congressional reports; 
but in the days of the alien and sedition acts I have been aided 
in only the smallest way by the Annals of Congress. The 
newspapers, the letters of members of the House and Senate 
to their constituents, against which John Adams complained 
so bitterly, but which were the main channels of the friends 
of liberty at that day to reach the people, and the memoirs 
and works of the statesmen of the period since published, all 
these, rather than the Annals of Congress, have furnished the 
true relation and voice of history, by which I have been enabled 
to write this part of Lyon's biography. 

The feeling of exasperation which Lyon provoked against 
himself in the minds of John Adams and his cabinet, and in 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 32I 

those of the leaders of the Senate and House, is a fair indica- 
tion of his prominent part in the struggle. When they could 
not bring him to terms in debate, the Federalists would demand 
the previous question, and some of Lyon's most persistent 
strokes were made in protests against that gag law of debate. 
He attacked the tyranny of the previous question with a vigor 
equal to, but in terms not so learned and profound as those 
employed on the same floor a few years afterwards by William 
Gaston, one of the most eloquent men who has ever figured 
in the Congress of the United States. We have a full report 
of the great speech of Gaston against the tyranny and usurpa- 
tion of the previous question, January 19, 1816. Here is a 
short passage from it which shows that he, like Lyon, was in 
earnest in championing the cause of freedom of debate: " The 
House/' said Judge Gaston, " may not allow debate on a 
motion for adjournment, or a question whether language be 
indecorous, but if it forbid the duly constituted agent from 
performing his regular and proper functions, it is then unsurpa- 
tion, not right; it is abuse of power, not regulation. The 
privilege of the Representative to declare the will, to explain 
the views, to make known the grievances and to advance the 
interests of his constituents, was so precious, in the estimation 
of the authors of our Constitution, that they have secured 
to him an irresponsibility elsewhere, for whatever may be ut- 
tered by him in this House; 'for any speech or debate in 
either House, they (the Senators and Representatives) shall 
not be questioned in any other place.' The liberty of speech 
is fenced round with a bulwark, which renders it secure from 
external injury — here is its citadel — its impregnable fortress. 
Yet here, even here, it is to be strangled by the bowstring of 



322 MATTHEW^ LYON 

the previous question. In vain may its enemies assail it from 
without; but within, the mutes of despotism can murder it 
with impunity."*^ 

In spite of all opposition, of the calm closet reasoning of 
Gallatin, the fiery eloquence of Giles, the sturdy fidelity of 
Macon, the unanswerable arguments of Livingston, the Hamp- 
^ den-Hke resistance of Lyon, the alien and sedition bills were 
carried through Congress by the imperious majority, and 
became the law of the land. John Adams was armed with 
two weapons which Mr. Jefiferson solemnly declared meant 
monarchy, with a reigning dynasty of the Adams or Hamilton 
family on the throne, or the restoration of George the Third, 
as King. Thus wrote Jefferson to Stevens Thompson Mason: 

" Monticello, October ii, 1798. 
" Dear Sir. — The X, Y, Z fever has considerably abated 
through the country, as I am informed, and the alien and sedi- 
tion laws are working hard. I fancy that some of the State 
Legislatures will take strong ground on this occasion. For 
my own part, I consider those laws as merely an experiment 
on the American mind, to see how far it will bear an avowed 
violation of the Constitution. If this goes down, we shall im- 
mediately see attempted another act of Congress, declaring 
that the President shall continue in office during life, reserving 
to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, 
and the establishment of the Senate for life. At least, this may 
be the aim of the Oliverians, while Monk and the Cavaliers 
(who are perhaps the strongest) may be playing their game for 
the restoration of his most gracious Majesty George the Third. 

^ Speech of Judge Gaston of North Carolina, on the Rules and 
Orders of the House, " Annals 14th Congress," p. 702. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 323 

That these things are in contemplation, I have no doubt; nor 
can I be confident of their failure, after the dupery of which 
our countrymen have shown themselves susceptible. Adieu. 

" Yours affectionately, 

" Thomas Jefferson." 

In an examination of the voluminous writings of John 
Adams, I find passages of great bitterness against Matthew 
Lyon. Even after his retirement to private life, Adams in- 
dulged in occasional outbursts against foreigners, never omit- 
ting Lyon from the objurgations. Here is an extract from a 
letter of Mr. Adams to Christopher Gadsden of South Caro- 
lina: " Quincy, 16 April, 1801. Is there no pride in Ameri- 
can bosoms? Can their hearts endure that Callender, Duane, 
Cooper and Lyon, should be the most influential men in the 
country, all foreigners, and all degraded characters? . 
Foreigners must be received with caution, or they will destroy 
all confidence in government."^ 

To Benjamin Stoddert Mr. Adams wrote still more fiercely, 
a few weeks after he left Washington: " Quincy, 31 March, 
1801. If we had been blessed with common sense, we should 
not have been overthrown by Philip Freneau, Duane, Callen- 
der, Cooper and Lyon, or their great patron and protector. 
A group of foreign liars encouraged by a few ambitious native 
gentlemen, have discomfited the education, the talents, the 
virtues, and the property of the country. The reason is we 
have no Americans in America."'' 

Fifteen years later he still harps on the same string. " To 

«" Jefferson's Works," IV, 258. 

*•" Life and Works of John Adams," IX, 584. 

"Ibid, IX, 584. 



324 MATTHEW LYON 

James Lloyd. Quincy, 6 February, 181 5. Mr. Randolph in 
his letter to you says: 'Tlie artillery of the press has long 
been the instrument of our subjugation.' . . . And which 
were the presses that formed the fortresses? And who were 
the engineers that directed this artillery? Mr. Randolph's 
own dear Cooper, Matthew Lyon, etc."* 

With Argus eyes the Federalists, after the passage of the 
alien and sedition laws, were watching every movement and 
utterance of Lyon, and John Adams yearned for an oppor- 
tunity to put him in a dungeon. Lyon, aware of their purposes, 
became more circumspect, and took care to utter nothing which 
would make him liable to arrest. He instinctively felt that he 
was the man they were after, and determined to disappoint Mr. 
Adams and his myrmidons. But his prudence was unavailing; 
his hopes of fair treatment were all illusory. When John 
Hampden refused to pay the few shillings assessed against 
him as ship money, and went to law with the king to test its 
constitutionality, Charles the First won a barren victory in the 
Exchequer Chamber, by a vote of seven to five of the judges, 
the smallest vote possible by which a victory could be won. 
But by that victory Charles lost his throne and his head. Five 
of the judges sustained Hampden and voted against the writ. 
"Till this time," says Lord Clarendon in his celebrated historic 
picture of Hampden, " he was rather of reputation in his own 
county, than of public discourse or fame in the kingdom; but 
then he grew the argument of all tongues, every man inquir- 
ing who and what he was, that durst at his own charge sup- 
port the liberty and prosperity of the kingdom. The judg- 
ment proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman 

'^Ibid, X. 116. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 325 

condemned than to the king's service."" In the long Pariia- 
ment during a fierce debate, shortly before the king entered 
the Parliament House to demand the surrender of the five re- 
fractory members with Hampden at their head, " we had 
sheathed our swords in each other's bowels," says an eye- 
witness, " had not the sagacity and great calmness of Mr. 
Hampden, by a short speech, prevented it."^ Hampden was 
put into a cell, but the English people set him free, and swept 
away the tyrant who imprisoned him. Over forty years after 
Matthew Lyon was imprisoned in Vergennes jail by John 
Adams, and fined a thousand dollars under the odious sedition 
law, the likeness between Lyon and Hampden as martyrs of 
liberty was depicted by Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina, 
in an eloquent speech in the House of Representatives at Wash- 
ington. It was delivered during a debate on the bill to refund 
the fine Matthew Lyon had paid, with interest to his heirs, and 
no doubt had much influence in securing the passage of the bill. 
"How stands this matter?" said Mr. Thompson. "Why, 
a man who ranked among the patriots of his country, who 
was cast into prison under an odious law, one who de- 
served a monument, and had it in the heart of every true man, 
and who stood up, one in ten thousand, against power and 
corruption, yet this man was entitled to no thanks from those 
who came after him. Here was a man who, like the illustrious 
patriot of England, John Hampden, had stood up against 
power in high places, for which he had suffered ignominy and 
been thrust into the cell of a felon, and yet in these times 
objection was made to remunerating his heirs, because the 



o Macaulay on Lord Nugent's " Memorials of Hampden." 
» Ibid. 



326 MATTHEW LYON 

man had been too poor to pay the fine himself. That country 
must be base, indeed, which would sanction such a plea. That 
country no longer deserved to be free which would deny jus- 
tice to a suffering patriot on such grounds. (Mr. Thompson 
here produced a copy of the order of the President of the 
United States, to the marshal of Vermont, requiring him to 
keep Lyon in custody until the fine and costs were paid.) 
Yes, said Mr. T. to keep him in jail until he rotted, unless 
the money should be paid. (He also produced a copy of the 
certificate from the marshal showing that the terms of the 
sentence had been complied with, and that Matthew Lyon was 
consequently discharged.) Now, after what he had read, would 
any gentleman get up and defend the Government against this 
claim? Here was the testimony of the Hon, Warren R. Davis 
in his report, than whom a man with a purer heart and a better 
head never lived, speaking of the money as having been paid, 
and also the certificate of the marshal to show that the fine had 
been exacted from this patriot, who dared to stand up for 
those great rights which Milton praised as above all others man 
could enjoy, namely, the right to speak, to write, or to publish. 
But (said Mr. T.) if there was no other way of getting rid of 
the money, I would burn it, rather than it should remain to 
pollute the treasury any longer. Tlie country ought to be 
glad of any excuse of getting rid of money wrung from the 
pockets of a patriot by such an odious law."" 

The events which now transpired in the career of Matthew 
Lyon strikingly confirm the appositeness of the analogy to 
Hampden so forcibly dwelt upon by Waddy Thompson. 
During the summer of 1798, after the adjournment of Con- 

« " Congressional Globe," 26th Congress, 1840, p. 413. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3^7 

gress Colonel Lyon returned to his home in Fair Haven, and 
announced to his friends that he would be a candidate for re- 
election to the next Congress. As his enemies had grossly 
misrepresented his views, and held him up to popular reproach 
as a tool of France and enemy of the United States m the 
pending controversy between the two countries, he prepared 
a letter for publication in which he defined his real opmions 
and attitude upon public questions. This letter he sent to 
Dr Williams, editor of the Rutland Herald, who refused on 
any terms to admit it into his columns. Dr. Williams has 
written a History of Vermont, but his conduct on this occasion, 
in refusing a hearing to the other side argues rather un- 
favorably for the impartiality of his History. Colonel Lyon 
was not the man to be reduced to silence in this summary way. 
He forthwith announced a new semi-monthly publication, the 
first issue of which appeared on the ist of October 1798. By 
the courtesy of the assistant librarian of Yale College 
Mr F B. Dexter, I have before me, as I write, the origmal 
in^pression of this first issue. On the outside page appears 
the aggressive name in the words following: ^ 

" The public are here presented with No. i. of Lyon s Re- 
pubHcan Magazine, entitled The Scourge of Aristocracy and 
Repository of Important Political Truths." Tl.e title of the 
magazine is repeated on the first page inside, followed by the 
words, "By James Lyon." Tliis was the oldest son of the 
Colonel, and although the son was editor, the father's contri- 
butions became the leading feature of the periodical. The 
Scourge is printed on coarse paper, but the type is good and 
new. The salutatory begins thus: 

- The public utility of such a publication in a free govern- 



328 MATTHEW LYON 

ment, even in a time of tranquillity, is so universally acknowl- 
edged by Republicans, that there needs no argument to prove 
it." It then proceeds to discuss the value of truth " at this 
agitated and awful crisis, when everything is industriously cir- 
culated, which can corrupt or mislead the public sentiment, 
and prepare the American mind for a state of abject slavery, 
and degrading subjection to a set of assuming High Mighti- 
nesses in our own country, and a close connection with a cor- 
rupt, tottering monarchy in Europe, which has long been in- 
tolerable to every man whose breast contains the smallest 
spark of the amor patriae. When every aristocratic hireling, 
from the English Porcupine, the summit of falsehood, detrac- 
tion and calumny, in Philadelphia, down to the dirty Hedge- 
hogs and groveling animals of his race, in this and the neigh- 
boring States, are vomiting forth columns of lies, malignant 
abuse and deception. The Scourge will be devoted to politics, 
and shall commemorate the writings, essays and speeches of 
the ablest pens and tongues, in the Republican interest. Its 
great object shall be to oppose truth to falsehood, and to lay 
before the public such facts as may tend to elucidate the real 
situation of this country." 

One or two short articles which appear in the first number 
are here reproduced: 

"From the Vergennes Gazette: The inhabitants of the 
northern counties were prevented last week from availing 
themselves of their Representatives' liberality, by misfortune 
equally singular and extraordinary. As the driver of the stage 
was industriously circulating the five hundred papers so gener- 
ously paid for by the patriotic member, at the Jacobin press, 
the horses disdaining to prostitute their services, set ofif full 
speed, and left the precious cargo in the mud; the driver es- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 329 

caped ' with limbs unbroken/ but dreading the consequences 
in future, solemnly swore he would have nothing to do with 
the papers, consequently they were left in a worse plight (if 
possible) than when they issued from the press." 

Upon the foregoing the Scourge remarks : 

" The above is a true specimen of the low, dirty, deceitful 
manner which the supporters of the present administration 
take to deceive the people. . . . The insinuation contained in 
the paragraph I have here copied, I can assert, and produce the 
proof, if necessary, is a downright lie, in toto — and I think such 
language is good enough for such villains." 

The movements of Bonaparte are thus chronicled: 

" The public are undoubtedly anxiously waiting the arrival 
of something decisive respecting the future destination, and 
real object of the immortal and unmatched hero, Buonaparte. 
All that I can announce with certainty, respecting his move- 
ments since the sailing of the Toulon fleet, is his capture of 
Malta, an island in the Mediterranean between Naples and 
Africa, inconsiderable in territory, containing 150,000 inhabi- 
tants, extremely rich, being thought a safe retreat from French 
intrusion, and of course resorted to by all monied emigrants 
from France, Rome and the various emancipated aristocracies. 
Detached from other objects, Malta would seem an inconsider- 
able conquest for the French to make at this day; but taking 
into view the object, which from the latest accounts I presume 
they have, it must be considered the most important acquisition 
possible in Europe, and will become to them what Gibraltar 
is to the English. The cutting through of the Isthmus of Suez, 
in a direct Hne is, indeed, not possible; but a junction of the 
Mediterranean Sea with the Arabian Gulph, in a certain sense, 
is possible. This will ensure to France the sovereignty of 



330 MATTHEW LYON 

Egypt and the trade of all the eastern world, and Malta will 
become their stronghold and warehouse." 

But the principal attraction of the first number of the 
Scourge was Colonel Lyon's political letter which Dr. Williams 
would not publish. The Colonel adopted the ingenious 
method of Cicero laid down in his Dc Oratorc, and presented 
his views in colloquy. The Federalists were disappointed by 
this very adroit letter, which did not contain one word even 
constructively seditious. I here present it. 

A letter from Col. Matthew Lyon, Member of Congress 
form the Western District of Vermont, to his constituents: 

" Fellow Citizens: At a time when all tongues which have 
been accustomed to move for hire, and two presses under the 
influence of those wretched calumniators are incessantly em- 
ployed to abuse, vilify and falsely accuse me — when any de- 
fence of mine will not be admitted in the Rutland paper — and 
when the communication between Windsor and this place is 
so greatly impeded; I am induced to have recourse to this 
method of a pamphlet publication, which I cannot but believe 
will be excusable, under the existing circumstances. 

" While virulence and villainy is carried to such a height, 
as even to assert that I dare not, nor cannot defend myself; 
a conversation which I had a few days since, with an honest 
neighbor, on these subjects has occurred to me, as the plainest 
and readiest method to communicate my ideas; I therefore 
present you with a transcript of it, as near as I recollect. 

" Neighbor. — I am glad to see you, Colonel Lyon. The 
newspapers are so full of one thing or another about you, that 
I have been for some time past determined, as soon as I saw 
you, to know what you had to say to these things. I see you 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 33I 

are charged with being opposed to our Government. What 
have you to say to it? 

" Lyon. — It was my fortune to be called to take my seat 
in Congress, at a time when the French, under pretence of 
aggression on the part of our Government, were making the 
most unwarrantable aggressions on the commerce of this 
country. I found many so exasperated as to be ready to go 
directly into a war with France; and it appeared to me, that 
nothing but the dread of a contrary opinion of the people of 
the United States prevented, at that time, the awful plunge. 
I had been accustomed to consider war the greatest national 
evil ; I have seen the dreadful sufferings and calamities attend- 
ant on one war; I very well knew, although that war was a 
war of necessity, and had for its object, on our part, our very 
existence as a nation, as well as the saving of the lives and 
properties of those who had taken an active part in it, that 
many were tired out with its troubles and perplexities to that 
degree, that nothing but the seeming interposition of a kind 
Providence could have brought it to a favorable issue on our 
part. I could see no other object, or pretence of object, in 
the war we were invited into, than merely the defence of our 
commerce on the ocean. Tliis I considered as impossible to 
be done to the full satisfaction of the merchants, even at the 
expense of the whole landed property of the country. Of con- 
quest, reparation, or profitable captures, there could be no 
hope on our part. Submission to terms which had deprived 
the shipping of America of the carrying trade of France, had 
been adopted, and many other sacrifices had been made, rather 
than involve this country in a war with England. My desire 
for peace at that time, made me to acquiesce in those measures; 



332 MATTHEW LYON 

and I could devise no way to avoid a war, but by a sacrifice 
of the future profits of that commerce which had become ex- 
posed to depredations. About one-half of the members of 
the House of Representatives appeared to be of that opinion. 
We were sensible of the injury individuals must suflfer by 
such a line of conduct, and were willing to have made them 
some reparation. With this disposition we adjourned in July, 
1797, with more hopes of a speedy conclusion of the war in 
Europe, than from the proposed negotiation. Although many 
changes had taken place in Europe, during the recess of Con- 
gress, yet the hoped for conclusion of their wars had not ar- 
rived, and the first despatches from our envoys informed us 
of new regulations of the French Government, which would 
be further injurious to our commerce, as well as of their cold 
reception, long delay and dull prospects. Tliese things af- 
fected the resentment of those who had determined, if possible, 
to keep our country out of the war as much, perhaps, as of 
those who gave vent to their rage by exclamations for war; 
yet we could see no possible advantage to accrue to this 
country by a war with a nation near 4,000 miles from us. We 
felt strong in ourselves, and unconquerable in our internal 
situation; but external and offensive war, we could not con- 
sider to be the occupation, the business, or the interest of 
Americans, who have neither men nor money to spare, nor a 
taste for conquest. We could not be willing to see our coun- 
try embark in an endless and useless contest concerning a 
commerce in which but a small part of the community were 
interested. We could not but be sensible that the cost of the 
war must fall on the landed interest, without the most distant 
prospect of retribution. We foresaw that many millions 
would be sunk. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 333 

" Neighbor. — Have not the French given sufficient provo- 
cation to this country, to justify us in going to war with them? 

" Lyon. — According to notions that have been entertained 
in Europe, among nations who have been in habits of war, 
who make a trade of it, who Hve so thick that they axe quar- 
rehng, as it were, for a spot of ground to stand upon, and per- 
petually conquering and plundering one another, there is no 
doubt but that the French have given us tenfold provocation 
for a declaration of war against them; but a country situated 
like this, secured as it were from them by an immense ocean, 
with a country in our possession craving a population of at 
least twenty or thirty fold, should never think of war as a 
trade, nor wage it with any nation, farther than in case of an 
invasion of their territory, to rise in mass, and drive out the 
invaders, returning to their farms and their homes immediately. 

" Neighbor. — You seem not to regard the commerce of this 
country; don't you know that the agricultural interest of this 
country cannot flourish without commerce? 

" Lyon. — I regard the commerce of the country so much, 
that I wish for markets for all its spare produce, and I am 
willing it should be so managed, that Americans should be 
our carriers, if they choose; but I am not so attached to that 
commerce which, as it were, forces upon this country unneces- 
saries, upon credit, and creates thousands of law suits and 
bankruptcies, as to consent to involve my country in an ever- 
lasting war, for the mere name of defending it without the 
power. I had much rather leave the carriage of the produce 
of this country to foreigners; had that been the case, instead 
of our arming, and the Europeans known it some months ago, 
produce of this country would have borne a much better price. 



334 MATTHEW LYON 

It is but very little interesting to the back country people 
whether our produce is carried away by Americans or by 
foreigners. We have room and employ for all our people, 
if not one of them go to sea. The merchants, after they have 
got their will with respect to a naval armament, and a law to 
cut off the intercourse with France and its colonies; and after 
our coast is clear of the privateers that infest it, are afraid to 
send out their vessels; and after all our marine has cost, and 
they have taken one small privateer schooner, produce has 
fallen at least one-third since the last winter. Another con- 
sideration with regard to foreign commerce, you must know, 
neighbor, is, that the people who make their own necessaries 
in back countries are not interested in it equally with those on 
and about the seashore and navigable rivers, were we able to 
defend it. Every one who is not in favor of this mad war, 
is branded with the epithet of Opposers of Government, Disor- 
ganizers, Jacobins, &c. I do not understand what people can 
mean by opposition to Government, applied to the Represen- 
tatives of the people, in that capacity. We have been accus- 
tomed to suppose that Representatives are sent to vote and 
support by their arguments their own opinions, and that of 
their constituents, and to act for the interest of their country. 
It is quite a new kind of jargon to call a Representative of the 
people an Opposer of the Government, because he does not, 
as a Legislator, advocate and acquiesce in every proposition 
that comes from the Executive. I have no particular interest 
of my own, in crossing the views of the Executive. When a 
proposition comes from that quarter, which I think, if gained, 
will be injurious to my constituents and the Constitution, I 
am bound by oath, as well as by every consideration of duty, 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 335 

to oppose it; if out-voted it is my duty to acquiesce; I do so; 
but measures which I opposed from duty, as injurious and 
ruinous to the liberty and interest of this country, in Congress, 
you cannot expect me to advocate at home. You never heard 
of my giving opposition to Government, by being concerned in 
a mob, or by encouraging any kind of riot or insurrection, 
except what comes in the lying Tory papers printed in New 
York and Philadelphia, where they know nothing of my 
character. 

" Neighbor. — I have known you thirty-four years, and have 
never heard of a thing of the kind, unless your opposition to 
the unjust claims of Britain and New York, were to be called 
Opposition to the Government. Your enemies say, you have 
joined the interest of the French, and wish to see this country 
subjugated by them. What have you to say to that? 

" Lyon. — Slander of this kind, is authorized by the party 
who advocate the war, from highest to lowest. The name 
of Mr. Jefferson, the Vice-President of the United States, is 
sometimes joined in the same line of an abusive British tory 
newspaper with my own, both called traitors, and for the same 
reason, our opposition to the war. Mr. Livingston, of New 
York, Mr. Nicholas, of Virginia, Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Giles, 
and indeed all the Republican members are used in the same 
manner, and are noticed in those vile vehicles of slander in 
proportion to their efforts to save their country from ruin. 
The country printers are generally in a strife to shew their 
attachment to what appears to be the ruling party in the 
Government. They disseminate this kind of abuse against 
the Republicans, in order to please the officers of Govern- 
ment at Philadelphia, from whom they expect employment 



33^^ MATTHEW LYON 

to print the governmental matters, in proportion to their zeal 
in their cause. The country printers are surrounded by law- 
yers and idlers, who wish to fish in troubled waters, and hope 
for offices by means of wars and new t^xes. You cannot but 
observe the old tories and their off-spring have universally 
joined in the acclamation for war, and the denunciation of 
every RepubHcan. This accounts for the abuse you see 
against me and some others, in a certain paper printed some- 
where between a thousand and fifteen miles from this, which 
is conducted by a person of that class, a man of great learn- 
ing, the same who some years ago took refuge in this State 
from a prosecution for forgery. As for myself, I never suf- 
fered my wishes for the welfare of any other nation to occupy 
my mind or by any means to interfere with my zeal for the 
service of this country; as soon as I saw the French were 
robbing our merchants, and destroying the commerce of this 
country, I felt all that sympathy for the sufferers, and that in- 
dignation towards the plunderers that any honest man would 
do on seeing a strong man and a stranger, abuse a weak one, 
and his neighbor and friend. This aversion toward the French 
has increased, as the French depredations and abuses of this 
country make a war that would be an evil to them only, or 
a means to prevent their further depredations, I should not 
have hesitated one moment in giving my assent to it; but when 
I could see but little injury that we could do them, and the 
vast calamity it would cause to this country, I could not concur 
in any measure which in my opinion led to it." 

Tliis very able and conservative letter was to have been con- 
tinued in the next number of the paper, but before that was 
issued Colonel Lyon had become a prisoner of State in Ver- 
gennes jail. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 337 

No sooner had the " Scourge of Aristocracy " made its ap- 
pearance, before the Black Cockades of President Adams were 
in motion against Colonel Lyon. There was nothing action- 
able in the above letter to his constituents, and a letter written 
by him June 20, 1798, and mailed at Philadelphia long before 
the enactment of the sedition law, was desperately seized 
upon as affording the only pretext for his indictment. There is 
scarcely a doubt that the appearance of the " Scourge of 
Aristocracy " was one of the impelling causes of his prosecu- 
tion. Word reached him to get out of the way until the excite- 
ment might blow over, but he refused, and stood his ground. 
When the process server came, he expressed his readiness to 
go at once, and promised to be in court when wanted. So 
general was the confidence in his character for integrity that 
the marshal's deputy made no demur, and Colonel Lyon ap- 
peared in court on the following Saturday morning to plead to 
the indictment. That distinguished law writer, Francis Whar- 
ton, in his '' State Trials of the United States," says: 

" It was in the recess between the two sessions that the trial 
took place. It was undoubtedly a bold step on the part of the 
administration, for the alleged libels were written before the 
passage of the law, though published afterwards. The defend- 
ant was an active member of the House of Representatives, 
where the vote was so equally balanced as to make his with- 
drawal of national political consequence; and he was then a 
candidate for re-election. A conviction under these circum- 
stances was calculated to inflame the country; nor was this 
feeling allayed by the publication throughout the land of a 
letter from Lyon himself to General Mason, then a Senator 
from Virginia."* 

« " State Trials of the United States," by Francis Wharton, p. 339. 



338 MATTHEW LYON 

He was convicted and imprisoned with every appliance of 
cruelty and despotism at the command of the administration 
brought into play against him. A wretched turnkey, instead 
of taking his prisoner, as it was his duty to do, to the District 
jail, carried him off forty miles to a loathsome pen at Ver- 
gennes, where his victim was immured among the vilest 
criminals. For a time this miscreant denied Colonel Lyon 
the use of pen and ink. But the indignation excited among the 
people compelled Fitch to relax that much of his cruelty, and 
the prisoner was again permitted under harsh restrictions to 
communicate with one or two of his friends. Presently Ver- 
mont was in a blaze of anger. The Green Mountain Boys, 
whom Lyon had led in many a hard fought battle against 
Yorkers in the Hampshire Grants era over a quarter of a cen- 
tury before, were up in arms. The surviving Minute Men who 
had scaled the hill at Ticonderoga side by side with Matthew 
Lyon under the lead of Ethan Allen in the first offensive fight 
of the Revolution, were now ready to shoulder their rusty flint- 
locks once more. The adherents of Governor Chittenden, 
veterans who had marched side by side with Lyon when he 
followed Seth Warner into Canada, fought under Stark at Ben- 
nington, and carried his gun among the victors of Saratoga, 
rallied now as they did in the Revolution to the side of their 
ancient comrade in arms. Here was one of the last survivors 
of the Old Guard who had come with the Connecticut pioneers 
out of the hive of Litchfield county, nursing mother of the 
mountain republic, with Remember Baker, Thomas Chitten- 
den, Ethan and Ira Allen, Seth Warner and Jonathan Fassett, 
to found Vermont and carry her through the great wars to 
peace and independence, cast now into a felon's cell, because he 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 339 

would not submit to tyranny, nor surrender the right won by 
precious blood, and written and safeguarded in wax and parch- 
ment in the Constitution, the American right of free speech 
and the freedom of the press. 

And the people were resolved to eflface the blot on the fair 
fame of Vermont, tear down the jail, and set free their Repre- 
, sentative. Nor was the indignation merely local, nor confined 
to the State. All over the Union Matthew Lyon was regarded 
as a political martyr, and as in England, when John Hampden, 
for asserting the rights of the people, was cast into prison by 
Charles the First, so now in the United States the persecution 
of a member of Congress in the same despotic fashion by John 
Adams for asserting similar rights, was everywhere regarded 
as a stab to liberty, and the President, like the King, was made 
to pay the penalty by the loss of his great office. As we had 
no Oliver Cromwell, the headsman's axe was mercifully spared, 
and the likeness in that respect, to the honor of America, re- 
mained imperfect, 

Matthew Lyon's letters began now to come out of Ver- 
gennes jail, and his brave spirit was unbroken, his cheerfulness 
and admonitions to obey all laws, even bad ones, until they 
should be repealed, were so impressive, and the vigor of his 
pen was such, that even the administration became alarmed, 
and efforts to buy him off, or to connive at his escape, in order 
to shake his hold on the public, were resorted to by leading 
FederaHsts. " He held the pen of a ready writer," says the 
.Vermont antiquarian. Rev. Pliny H. White, " clear, racy and 
idiomatic. If occasion required, he could handle the weapons 
of invective almost as murderously as Junius. His letters to 
John Adams, to William Duane, and to Elias Curtis, are worth. 



340 MATTHEW LYON 

reading by all who wish to know the full powers of the English 
language. His addresses to his constituents, at various times, 
will also repay perusal. There are frequent sentences in them 
which have the terseness and pungency of epigrams. He was 
never lavish in the use of words, but gave his readers an idea 
in every sentence."" 

Like Hampden in the long Parliament when he prevented 
his partisans, as Macaulay relates, ivom sheathing their swords 
in the. bowels. Qf the royalists, so too did Matthew Lyon pre- 
vent the Green Mountain Boys from tearing:, iJown the Ver- 
gennes^jail, and setting him free. He advanced to the window 
of his cell and addressed the thousands who had assembled in; 
the words of wisdom and forbearance, advised obedience to all 
laws, no matter whether good or bad, and in a loud voice, 
which was heard by every one present, urged them to correct 
abusesji^the polls, and not to add to them by lawless violence. 

The learned law writer^ Francis Wharton, in his " State 
Trials/' dwells with evident admiration upon the prisoner's de- 
meanor at this trying moment. " Lyon's imprisonment," says 
he, " was enforced with a rigor which excited the great mass of 
his constitutents to such a pitch as to lead to a popular rising, 
the avowed object of which was to tear down the prison. Tliis, 
however, he succeeded in suppressing, and in fact his whole 
demeanor was marked with great prudence and tact. His 
wife, with her sisters, the daughters of Governor Chittenden, 
having one day visited him, the usual barrier to their entrance 
was removed, and she was permitted to enter the cell. At 



«"Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," an address before the^ 
Vermont Historical Society, in the presence of the General Assembly 
of Vermont, by Pliny H. White, 1858. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 34I 

this moment some less prudent .f dend. mtuiTated that now was 
the period to escape. ' That he shall not do,' said the prisoner's 
wife, ' if I stand sentin^l^m^rsepT' The spirit, energ-y and de- 
votion shown by this eminent lady during her husband's im- 
prisonment, gave fresh vigor to his supporters, and courage to 
himself. So awkward did his position become to the adminis- 



tration, thajLthe CabinfitJiantfid f or an excuse to liberate him. 



His determination to give up nothing on the one hand, coupled 
with his constant and watchful exhortations to his supporters 
to yield the most implicit obedience to the law, made the dif- 
ficulty peculiarly embarrassing. Had he apologized on the 
one hand, or stormed on the other; had he either petitioned for 
a pardon, or connived at a rescue; he could easily have been 
disposed of. But neither of these would he do. An attempt 
to induce him to take the former step, backed, it was intimated, 
by a high promise, failed. An attempt to involve him in the 
latter, he himself frustrated."" 

Whatever trepidation and desire to extricate themselves 
from a bad situation the cabinet, dominated by Hamilton, 
may have experienced, it is quite certain that President Adams 
never relented, and felt no qualms of conscience over the suffer- 
ings of Matthew Lyon. When a petition on behalf of Colonel 
Lyon, signed by several thousand Vermonters, was sent to 
him, he sternly asked whether the prisoner had signed it, and 
learning that he had not, he treated Mr. Ogden, chairman of 
the committee, a highly esteemed citizen of Vermont, with 
great rudeness for bringing him such a paper. " I omitted to 
mention," says Jefferson in a letter to Madison, January 3, 1799, 
" that a petition has been presented to the President, signed by 

o " Wharton's State Trials of the United States," p. 342. 



342 MATTHEW LYON 

several thousand persons in Vermont, praying a remitment of 
Lyon's fine. He asked the bearer of the petition if Lyon him- 
self had petitioned, and being answered in the negative, said, 
'penitence before pardon.' "" 

One of the first letters written by Colonel Lyon, after the 
interdict on his writing anything had been removed, was the 
celebrated letter to General Stevens Thompson Mason, the 
distinguished Senator from Virginia. It was published exten- 
sively by the Democratic newspapers throughout the Union, 
and intensified the indignation of the people against the ad- 
ministration. It became a powerful weapon in the hands of 
the friends of the Republican or Democratic candidates, Jef- 
ferson and Burr, at the next Presidential election, and proved 
a deadly blight to the prospects of the Federalist candidates, 
Adams and Pinckney. The following is the letter: 

" [To General Stevens Thompson Mason.] 

" In jail at Vergennes (the only 
city in Vermont, it contains 
about sixty houses and seventy 
families), October 14, 1798. 

" Dear General, 

" I take the liberty to trouble you with the recital of what 
has happened to me within about ten days past. 

" On Thursday, the 5th of this month, I was informed that 
a grand jury had been collected to attend the federal court 
at Rutland, about fifteen miles from my place of residence; 
that they were selected from the towns which were particu- 
larly distinguished by their enmity to me; that the jury was 

« "Jefferson's Works." IV. 262. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 343 

composed of men who had been accustomed to speak ill of 
me; that they had received a charge to look to the breaches of 
the sedition law; and that they had some publications of mine 
under consideration. The same night a friend called, and 
assured me that a bill was found against me, and urged me 
to be out of the way of being taken-he declared to me, that it 
was the wish of many of my friends. He informed me that 
the petit jury were taken from the same towns where the grand 
jury were; and that from every examination therewere not more 
than two out of the fourteen which were summoned, who had 
not oDposed me in the late election. He mentioned several 
zealous partisans for Presidential infallibility among them, and 
one who had been lately writing the most virulent things 
against me, in his own name, which were published in a news- 
paper. My answer to all this was, it could not be honourable 
to run away— I felt conscious that I had done no wrong, and 
my enemies should never have it to say that I ran from them. 
An officer of the court had been in my neighborhood the same 
evening to summon witnesses. I had told him, if the court 
wanted me, he need bring no posse, he might come alone, I 
would go with him, there should be no resistance. Accord- 
ingly on Friday evening, the same officer, a deputy marshal, 
came with a warrant for my apprehension, which he gave me 
to read, and accepted of my word and honour as bail to meet 
him at Rutland court-house the next morning about nine 
o'clock. I was there accordingly; and soon after the court was 
opened I was called to the bar to hear the indictment read. It 
consisted of three counts; the first for having maHciously, &c., 
with intent, &c., written, at Philadelphia, a letter dated the 
20th of June, and published the same at Windsor, in the news- 



344 MATTHEW LYON 

paper called the Vermont Journal, containing the words follow- 
ing: 

" *As to the Executive, when I shall see the efforts of that 
power bent on the promotion of the comfort, the happiness, 
and accommodation of the people, that Executive shall have 
my zealous and uniform support; but whenever I shall, on the 
part of the Executive, see every consideration of the public 
welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an 
unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and 
selfish avarice; when I shall behold men of real merit daily 
turned out of office, for no other cause but independency of 
sentiment ; when I shall see men of firmness, merit, years, abili- 
ties, and experience, discarded in their applications for office, 
for fear they possess that independence, and men of meanness 
preferred for the ease with which they take up and advocate 
opinions, the consequence of which they know but little of — 
when I shall see the sacred name of religion employed as a 
state engine to make mankind hate and persecute one another, 
I shall not be their humble advocate.' 

" The second count consisted of having maliciously, &c., 
and with intent, &c., published a letter, said to be a letter from 
a diplomatic character in France, containing two paragraphs, 
in the words following: 

" ' The misunderstanding between the two governments 
(France and the United States) has become extremely alarm- 
ing; confidence is completely destroyed, mistrusts, jealousy, 
and a disposition to a wrong attribution of motives, are so 
apparent, as to require the utmost caution in every word and 
action that are to come from your Executive. I mean, if your 
object is to avoid hostilities. Had this truth been understood 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 345 

■with you before the recall of Monroe, before the coming and 
second coming of Pinckney ; had it guided the pens that wrote 
the bullying speech of your President, and stupid answer of 
your Senate, at the opening of Congress in November last, 
I should have probably had no occasion to address you this 
letter. 

" ' But when we found him borrowing the language of Ed- 
mund Burke, and telling the world that although he should 
succeed in treating with the French, there was no dependence 
to be placed on any of their engagements, that their religion 
and morality were at an end, that they would turn pirates and 
plunderers, and it v^ould be necessary to be perpetually armed 
against them, though you were at peace; we wondered that 
the answer of both Houses had not been an order to send 
him to a mad house. Instead of this the Senate have echoed 
the speech with more servility than ever George III experi- 
enced from either House of Parliament.' 

" The third count was for aiding and abetting, &c. in pub- 
lishing the same. I was called upon to know if I was ready 
to plead to the indictment. I answered, that I was always 
ready to say I was not guilty of the charges in the indictment, 
but that I was not provided with counsel, there being no person 
at Rutland I was willing to trust with my cause ; I had sent to 
Bennington for two gentlemen on whom I could rely, Messrs. 
Fay and Robinson, who would be here by Monday. It was 
then signified to me, that I might have the trial postponed 
until the session of the court in May next. This I could not 
wish for, as that session was to be at Windsor, over the moun- 
tain, where they were sure of having a unanimous jury, such 
as they wanted. 



346 MATTHEW LYON 

" In the fourteen jurymen before me I thought I saw one 
or two persons who knew me, and would never consent to say, 
that I was guilty of an intention of stirring up sedition ; I was 
unwilling to remain under a censure of the kind; for these 
reasons I chose to come to trial; I accordingly gave bonds 
for my appearance the next Monday. Saturday and Sunday 
were violent stormy days, and at the opening of the court on 
Monday I had heard nothing of my counsel, nor my mes- 
senger; I so informed the court, and told them I thought we 
should hear from them in an hour, for which time the court 
adjourned. Within that time my messenger returned, with 
news that Mr. Fay's wife was very sick, and Mr. Robinson, 
who is a member of the Legislature, was preparing to attend, 
and could not be at Rutland so soon as that time. Mr. Smith, 
who is our Chief Justice, was present, although he and I had 
been formerly competitors for the representation of this dis- 
trict in Congress; he is a republican, and many of my friends 
are now his friends; they applied to him to assist me, and I 
understood he had consented. Thus circumstanced, I pro- 
ceeded to trial. So ignorant was I of law proceedings, that 
I expected to object ofif the inveterate part of the jury, with- 
out giving particular reasons, or supporting them by evidence; 
I was, therefore, unprepared. The Attorney for the United 
States was called on to say if he had any objections to the 
jury. He said he had to a Mr, Board; he believed he had given 
an opinion in the cause; to prove which, he called upon a 
deputy sheriff, who swore he had some conversation on the 
Saturday before with Mr. Board, in which he understood Mr. 
Board to speak as if he thought that Mr. Lyon would not 
be condemned, or some such thing; Judge Paterson inquired 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 347 

if there was not enough for the panel without him, Mr. Board. 
He was answered, there were thirteen more. Mr. Board was 
ordered off. Thus was the only man sworn away that knew 
me enough to judge of my intentions. No one doubts that 
the deputy sheriff began a discourse with Mr. Board on pur- 
pose to have something to swear. Mr. Board said, he ex- 
pected that was the case when he came to him, and he care- 
fully avoided conversing with him. I objected to two of the 
jury on account of their violent opposition to me; and although 
unprepared with regard to truth, I called on some persons 
present to see if they could recollect any virulence made use 
of by those two; and I sent for the newspaper to prove the 
abuse of the one who had published ; the Judge observed, that 
a difference in political opinion could be reason against a jury- 
man, and as there were twelve beside, he ordered the person 
who had been libelling me, off. Here I pleaded to the jurisdic- 
tion of the court, on account of the unconstituionality of the 
law. My plea was overruled, but I was told I might make 
use of the arguments in any other stage of the trial. 

" The attorney, on the part of the United States on the first 
count, produced my original letter, on which was the Phila- 
delphia postmark, July 7. He attempted to bring some evi- 
dence to show that the letter did not arrive at Windsor until 
after the 14th of July; the printer's boy thought it did not 
arrive until the 20th, and Mr. Buck saw the setting from it 
about the 23rd, or later; I acknowledged the letter. As to the 
second count several evidences were brought to swear they 
heard me read the letter, said to be the Letter from a diplomatic 
character in France, from a manuscript copy, supposed to be 
in my own handwriting; they were inquired of whether the 



34^ MATTHEW LYON 

reading of the letter caused any tumult. One of the evidences, 
a young lawyer, and another person an associate of his, said 
that they thought it did at Middletown. One of them said 
he heard a person say, there must be a revolution, and they 
both agreed that there was a noise — and some tumult after the 
reading of that letter and some other papers. On my. inquir- 
ing of them the cause of the tumult, and their opinion, if there 
would have been any tumult there, if they had not followed me 
on purpose to make a disturbance? they acknowledged, they 
thought if they had not been there, there would have been no 
disturbance; and they also agreed, that the tumult was caused 
by the other people's disliking their being there, and their con- 
duct then; they agreed also that I refused to give an opinion 
upon the letter. 

" In proof of the third count, the Attorney produced evi- 
dence to show that the printed pamphlet, entitled a Copy of 
a letter from a Diplomatic character in France, was taken 
from a manuscript in my hand, and the printer said he received 
the copy from my wife. The evidence all agreed that I had 
ever been opposed to the printing of the letter, and gave for 
reason, that I had promised the gentleman to whom the origi- 
nal had been written, that I would not suffer it to be printed. 

The young lawyer said that I told him, there were not above 
one or two passages in the letter which could be called sedi- 
tious. 

" The attorney proceeded to sum up the evidence, and dwelt 
on everything which he thought proper to point out the ap- 
pearance of evil intentions. As soon as he had seated him- 
self, or before Judge Paterson rose and was proceeding to 
give his charge to the jury, I interrupted him with an inquiry 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 349 

into the cause why I should not be heard; he politely sat down 
and directed me to proceed. My defence consisted of an ap- 
peal to the jury, on the unconstitutionality of the law, the inno- 
cence of the passage in my letter, and the innocence of the 
manner in which I read the letter. It was said I spoke two 
hours and upwards. Mr. Smith declined speaking, as he was 
unprepared. The attorney replied as decently as any man of 
his profession and principles would. The charge from the 
judge was studiedly and pointedly severe. After telling the 
jury, if they leaned any way, it ought to be in favour of the 
defendant, he proceeded to dwell on the intention and wicked- 
ness of it, in the most elaborate manner; he descended to in- 
sinuate that the Barlow letter, as it was called, was a forgery; 
he said, let men of letters read that letter and compare it with 
Barlow's writings, and they would pronounce it none of his. 
He told the jury that my defence was merely an appeal to their 
feelings, calculated to excite their pity; but mercy, he said, did 
not belong to them, that was lodged in another place; they 
were to follow the law, which he explained in his own way, 
and supported the constitutionality of it. The jury retired 
about eight o'clock in the evening, and in about an hour they 
returned with a verdict. Guilty! The Judge observed to me, 
that I had then an opportunity to show cause why judgment 
should not be pronounced against me, and to show what was 
my ability or inability to pay a fine, as a man of large prop- 
erty, in such a case, ought to be obliged to pay a greater 
fine than one of smaller property. I replied, I did not ex- 
pect anything that I should say would have any influence on 
the court, in the present stage of the business. The judge said 
I might think of it until morning, and the court adjourned 



350 MATTHEW LYON 

until nine o'clock next morning; I then attended, and after 
being called upon, I observed to the court in reply to what 
had been said to me upon the score of property, that a few 
days ago I owned a property, which I estimated, some years 
since, at twenty thousand dollars; in the present state of the 
affairs of our country, I did not expect it would fetch half 
that sum. I had lately made over all the productive part of 
it, to secure some persons who were bound to me for debts, 
to the amount of sixteen or seventeen hundred dollars; there 
still remained enough to be worth much more than the court 
-were empowered to fix the fine at; but in the present scarcity 
of cash, and the prospect of lands soon to be sold very cheap, 
I did not know that I could possibly raise two hundred dollars 
in cash upon it. 

" The judge, after an exordium on the nature of the offence, 
the malignity of it in me, particularly being a member of 
Congress, and the lenity of the Sedition Bill, which did not 
allow the judges to carry the punishment so far as common 
law did, pronounced sentence that I be imprisoned four calen- 
dar months, pay a fine of one thousand dollars, and stand com- 
mitted until the judgment should be complied with. This 
sentence was unexpected to all my friends as well as myself; 
no one expected imprisonment. 

" The marshal is a man who acted as clerk to some persons 
whom I had occasion to transact some business with about a 
dozen years since, when he first came into this country, in 
which he behaved so that I have ever since most heartily 
despised him; this he has no doubt seen and felt. The moment 
sentence was pronounced, he called me to him and ordered 
me to sit down on a certain seat in the court house; he called 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 35I 

two persons to give me in charge to, one of them the person 
who followed me to Middletown to insult me, and was on 
the trial improved as an evidence. I asked if they would go with 
me to my lodgings a few minutes, so that I might take care 
of my papers? I was answered in a surly manner, No; and 
commanded to sit down. I stood up. After the court ad- 
journed, I inquired what was to be done with me until my 
commitment. I expected I should be confined in the prison 
in Rutland, the county where I lived; I was told that the 
marshal was authorized to imprison me in what jail in the 
State he pleased, and that I must go to Vergennes, about forty- 
four miles north of Rutland, and about the same distance from 
my seat at Fair Haven. I inquired what were the accommoda- 
tions there? and was answered in a manner peculiar to the 
marshal himself, that they were very good. I told the marshal, 
since it had become my duty to go there, he needed no assis- 
tance, I would go with him. He said he would not trust to 
that, and prepared two troopers, with their pistols to guard 
me. He ordered me to ride just before them; in this manner 
I left Rutland, After riding a few miles he overtook us and 
rode by us; he rode pretty fast and whispered to one of the 
young men ; I learned his intention was, to get to Middlebury, 
the shire town of Addison county, in order to throw me into 
a dirty dungeon-like room for that night. I did not mend my 
pace; he came back and scolded; insulted and threatened; he 
repeated it. His friends, I was told, expostulated with him, 
and the humane young men, who were employed as guards, 
told him they would rather watch me all night than that I 
should be thrown into the jail ; we lived at a tavern about four 
miles short of Middlebury jail; the young men watched: the 



352 MATTHEW LYON 

next day we arrived at this place ; there are two roads to come 
into it, one comes up straight to the jail-house, by but two 
or three houses; the other is circuitous, taking almost the 
whole length of the little city in its course. I was foremost 
and inclined to take the nearest road, but the gentleman, by 
that route, would lose a share of his triumph; he ordered us 
in a peremptory tone into the circuitous road through the city. 
On the way from Rutland, he undertook to direct me, and 
stop me as to speaking, and told me I should not have the 
use of pen, ink and paper. On Wednesday evening last I was 
locked up in this room, where I now am; it is about sixteen 
feet long by twelve wide, with a necessary in one corner, which 
affords a stench about equal to the Philadelphia docks in the 
month of August. This cell is the common receptacle for 
horse-thieves, money-makers, runaway-negroes, or any kind 
of felons. There is a half-moon hole through the door, suffi- 
cient to receive a plate through, and for my friends to look 
through and speak to me. There is a window place on the 
opposite side, about twenty inches by sixteen, crossed by nine 
square iron bars; all the light I have is through this aperture; 
no fire-place in the cell, nor is there anything but the iron 
bars to keep the cold out; consequently I have to walk smartly 
with my great coat on, to keep comfortably warm some morn- 
ings. 

" On Thursday morning last, I asked a friend for his pen 
and ink, in presence of the jailer. It was offered me; but the 
jailer said, it was against his orders, I must not have it. The 
marshal paid me a visit on Thursday evening, he examined the 
cell, looked on my little table to see what was there : but found 
nothing but Volney's Ruins, the late laws, some of the Presi- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 353 

dent's messages, and a list of the petit jury. I inquired of him 
before, or then, what situation I was to consider myself in with 
regard to the use of pen and ink? His answer was, I might 
use them; but he must see everything I sent out of the jail, 
if I concluded otherwise, (looking at a chain that lay on the 
floor,) he said he would put me in a situation in which I could 
not write. I asked him what he meant by that? He told me I 
was at his disposal, and if I did not behave like a prisoner, he 
would send me to Woodstock jail. I told him there would 
be one advantage in that, he would not be there always, and 
I should get rid of the sight of him. On Friday, for the first 
time, two brothers-in-law were admitted to come in to see me. 
Some of my friends expostulated with the marshal on the sub- 
ject of denying me pen and ink; and in the evening I observed 
a man hammering on the prison door. You seem much con- 
cerned about that door (said I); there has scarce been an hour 
since I came here, but there has been some person hammering 
at the door, or putting on new bolts or bars. It is all useless, 
said I; if I wished to come out, they could not hold me; and 
as I do not, if my limits were marked by a single thread, I 
would not overstep it. He replied, he was only nailing up an 
advertisement. Next morning, when the house was very still, 
I heard some person step up and read the advertisement on 
the door; it contained a preamble concerning my having com- 
plained that I was debarred the use of pen and ink and paper, 
and a declaration that I had leave to furnish myself with those 
things, and use them as I thought proper, signed by the 
marshal. As soon as I could get my eye on a person that 
would go and fetch General Clark, my friend and brother-in- 
law, who is a member of the legislature now sitting here, I sent 



354 MATTHEW LYON 

one. He came. I desired him to read the advertisement, and 
tell me what I should do concerning Fitch, the marshal. He 
said he would go and see Fitch, and see how he explained the 
business; he went to Fitch's house, but could not find him; 
some other business occupied him the rest of the day. T next 
morning sent for a number of friends, who got admittance., 
and after some conversation on the subject before the jailer, 
and getting his explanation of the advertisement, that he con- 
sidered me now allowed to write, without submitting my pro- 
ductions to the marshal, I was solemnly invested with pen and 
ink. The first use I have made of it, after a line to my wife, 
is to write you this long, prolix account of the fruits of this 
beloved Sedition bill. You may remember that I told you, 
when it was passing, that it was doubtless intended for the 
members of Congress, and very likely would be brought to 
bear on me the very first; so it has happened, and perhaps I, 
who have been a football for dame fortune all my life, am 
best able to bear it. I have long disobeyed your injunction 
to write to you, waiting to be able to give you an account of 
the elections. 

" The noise that has been made about the public and private 
negotiations of our envoys at Paris, has answered the pur- 
poses of the aristocrats completely, (on the other side of the 
mountain, I mean, Morris's district,) to exasperate the unthink- 
ing people against every republican. Governor Robinson had 
more than half of the votes on this side of the mountain; but 
Tichenor has got a great majority; in the whole he had 6,211 ; 
Robinson, 2,805, beside, I am told, there were about five 
hundred for him, which were lost by inaccurate returns; there 
were also 332 scattering votes. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 



355 



" Monday, October 15. 
" I have just learned that Morris is re-elected, and I have 
received the list of the votes for Representatives to Congress 
in this district; they stand for your friend, 



an aristocratic candidate. 

an aristocratic candidate, brother to 
your little horse-nail maker. 

and several other aristocrats. 

and several other republicans. 

given in for Governor, and the Rep- 
resentatives of the several towns in 
Assembly, by one accident or an- 
other, put into the box for Repre- 
sentatives to Congress. 



" Lyon 


3482. 


" Williams, 


1,554, 


" Chipman, 


1,370, 


" Spencer, 


285, 


" Israel Smith, 


274, 




30 



6,995 

3,482 

3,513 



" I remain, with unabated aflfection, 

" Your obedient servant, 

" M. LYON." 

For many years the official record of the case of Matthew 
Lyon was suppressed, and not even the victim himself could 
procure a copy of it. Mr. Wharton sought for it diligently, 
but in vain, when writing his elaborate work, " The State Trials 
of the United States." The Adams party was ashamed of it, 
and tried to bury it from view. " The materials of this case," 
says Mr. Wharton, " which with the greatest difficulty, I have 
collected, are drawn chiefly from the New York ' Spectator ' 



356 MATTHEW LYON 

of October 24, 1798, a paper then said to be under Mr. Hamil- 
ton's control, and of course decidely Federal, and from the 
'Aurora' of November 15, 1798, whose poHtics were equally 
decided the other way. I have made very general inquiries 
for fuller details, but the Vergennes paper of that day goes no 
further than those just cited, and I understand that a fuller 
report is not now to be obtained."" 

Lyon complained of injustice and hard treatment on the part 
of Judge Paterson. His charge to the jury as given by Whar- 
ton, and his imputation of forgery of the Barlow letter, sus- 
tain the complaint of Lyon, and with the ruffianly conduct of 
marshal Fitch to the prisoner, which a decent judge would not 
have tolerated, all go to prove that Paterson was a fit tool of 
tyranny, if not as murderously inclined as a Norbury, still be- 
longing to the same detestable family of judicial sleuths. 

After a long, and as I feared fruitless search, like Mr. Whar- 
ton's, for the official record of this celebrated trial, I at last dug 
it out of a forgotten Congressional report. Those ponderous 
tomes John Randolph once likened to mausoleums of the 
dead, — " Why publish them?" quoth the Knight of Roanoke. 
" Nobody reads them ; nobody is expected to read them." 
And Longfellow wittily corroborates Randolph : " Thanks," 
wrote the poet to Charles Sumner, " for your letter of four 
lines, one of which I could not read! Thanks for the four 
volumes of ' The Globe,' none of which I shall read! " 

But these old reports and public documents are of value 
to the historian, and from the pages of this one, I am enabled 
to rescue from oblivion the official record, evidently softened, 
and pruned of many of its harsh features, of the trial of Mat- 

e " State Trials of the United States," p. 331. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 357 

thew Lyon. The counts and specifications and cumbrous, 
common law tautology of the indictment will be dreary enough 
to the average lay reader, but lawyers and judges may be in- 
terested in a case which is the most serious blot on their pro- 
fession in the annals of the American judiciary. For forty 
years the case of Matthew Lyon continually recurred in the 
proceedings and debates of the United States Senate and 
House of Representatives, for a reparation of the crime against 
the Constitution in the only possible way, by refunding to the 
victim or his heirs the fine and costs, with interest in full on 
the money, iniquitously wrung from his pocket. Year after 
year justice was thwarted, and the ill-gotten money remained 
in the treasury. But year after year the American conscience 
revolted and came back to the case, and many of the foremost 
of our statesmen made that national wrong against a patriotic 
citizen the text of eloquent arguments for restitution. The 
memory and name of John Adams were darkened by those 
denunciations of the alien and sedition laws, and in truth 
until that money was taken out of the treasury in i84o and 
paid to the heirs of Matthew Lyon, then long since gone to 
his reward, the character of John Adams, in many respects 
one of the noblest in the history of the Republic, remained 
unvindicated from an act of oppression which had proved the 
Iliad of all his woes. 

" Case of Matthew Lyon. 
Mr. McLean, of Kentucky, from the committee appointed on 
the memorial of Matthew Lyon, made a report thereon, accom- 
panied with a bill for his relief; which, by leave of the House, 
was presented, read the first and second time, and committed 



358 MATTHEW LYON 

to a Committee of the Whole to-morrow. The report is as 
follows : 

The petitioner states that, in violation of that provision of 
the Constitution of the United States of America which says 
" Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech 
or of the press," Congress in July, 1798, passed the act com- 
monly called the sedition law; that, some time previous to the 
passage of this bill, there appeared in the Philadelphia Fed- 
eral papers a violent attack upon his character extracted from 
the Vermont Journal, charging him with many political enor- 
mities, particularly with the high crime of opposing the Execu- 
tive; that he wrote a reply to this charge in Philadelphia, on 
the 20th of June, 1798, and on the same day put the letter, 
directed to the editor of the said Vermont Journal, into the 
post office at Philadelphia, twenty four days before the pas- 
sage of the sedition law. For the publication of this letter 
he was indicted in October following, in the circuit court of 
the United States in the Vermont district. In the same indict- 
ment, he was charged with publishing a copy of a letter from 
an American diplomatic character in France to a member of 
Congress in Philadelphia; also for aiding, assisting, and abet- 
ting in the publication of said letter. 

He states said letter was written by Joel Barlow to Abraham 
Baldwin then a member of Congress: He denies that he 
printed said letter, or aided or abetted in the printing of it; 
but, on the contrary, that he used his endeavors to suppress 
it, by destroying the copies which came into his possession. 
He states that, owing to the political party zeal which pre- 
vailed in the United States at that time, much unfairness was 
used in the trial, both by the marshal in summoning the jury. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 359 

and the judge who presided, in his instructions to them, and 
thereby a verdict of guilty was returned against him by the 
jury; and upon that verdict the court sentenced him to pay 
a fine of $1,000, the costs of suit, be imprisoned four calen- 
dar months, and until the fine and costs were paid. He 
states that, by virtue of said judgment, he was arrested and con- 
fined in a dungeon, the common receptacle of thieves and mur- 
derers, fifty miles distant from the place of his trial, although 
there was a decent roomy jail in the county in which he lived, 
and in the town where the trial was had, which jail the Fed- 
eral Government had the use of; that much severity was ex- 
ercised towards him during his imprisonment; that he lan- 
guished in the loathsome prison more than six weeks in the 
months of October, November, and December, in the cold 
climate of Vermont, without fire, before he was allowed, at 
his own expense, to introduce a small stove, or to put glass 
into the aperture which let in a small glimmer of light through 
the iron grate. 

He states that he is poor, and asks Congress to refund to 
him $1,000, the fine which he has paid, the costs of suit, for 
one hundred and twenty-three days' pay as a member of Con- 
gress, while he was unconstitutionally detained from a seat 
in that body, reasonable damages for being suddenly deprived 
of his liberty, put to great expense, and disabled from paying 
that attention to his concerns, which, in other circumstances, 
he would have been allowed to do, and such interest on those 
sums as public creditors are entitled to. 

Your committee state that the prosecution against the said 
petitioner, the judgment, imprisonment, and payment of 
$1,000, the fine, and $60.96, the costs of suit, are proved by a 



360 MATTHEW LYON 

copy of the record of proceedings in said cause, which is made 
a part of this report. The committee are of opinion tliat the 
law of Congress under which the said Matthew Lyon was 
prosecuted and punished was unconstitutional, and therefore 
he ought to have the money which has been paid by him re- 
funded; but, should they be mistaken as to the unconstitu- 
tionality of this law, yet they think there are peculiar circum- 
stances of hardship attending this case which call for relief. 
Your committee, therefore, ask leave to report a bill. 

Official Record of the Case Certified. 

The President of the United States to all who shall see these 
presents, greeting: 

Know ye, that among the pleas of our circuit court of sec- 
ond circuit of the United States, in the Vermont district, there 
is a certain record remaining, in the words following, to wit: 

United States of America, 

Vermont District, to wit: 

Pleas of the circuit court of the said United States, at their 
term begun and held at Rutland, within and for the said Ver- 
mont district, on Wednesday the 3rd day of October, in the 
year of our Lord 1798, and of the independence of the United 
States the twenty-third, before the honorable William Pater- 
son, esq., one of the associate justices of the Supreme Court 
of the United States, and the honorable Samuel Hitchcock, 
esq., district judge within and for the said Vermont district^ 
and judges of said circuit court according to the form of the 
statute in such case made and provided. 

United States versus Matthew Lyon. 

Be it remembered that, at a term of the circuit court of the 
said United States, begun and held at Rutland, within and 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 361 

for the district aforesaid on the third day of October, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight 
and of the independence of the said United States the twenty- 
third, before the honorable WilHam Paterson, esq., one of 
the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the said United 
States, and the honorable Samuel Hitchcock, esq. district 
judge within and for the said district of Vermont, judges of 
the said circuit court, according to the form of the statute in 
such case made and provided, the grand jurors within and 
for the body of said district of Vermont, to wit: Eli Cogswell, 
Nathan Pratt, David Osgood, Ozias Fuller, Royal Crafts, Abner 
Mead, Gideon Horton, Abraham Gilbert, Ebenezer Worster, 
John Mott, Thomas Hammond, Adgate Lothrop,John Penfield, 
Ebenezer Hopkins, Brewster Higly, Zadock Remington, Abi- 
jah Brownson, and Joel Culver, good and lawful freeholders of 
the said district, then and there empanelled, sworn and charged 
to inquire, for the said United States, and for the body of the 
district aforesaid, did present, that Matthew Lyon, of Fair 
Haven, in the said district of Vermont, being a malicious and 
seditious person, and of a depraved mind and wicked and dia- 
bolical disposition, and deceitfully, wickedly and maliciously 
contriving to defame the Government of the United States, 
and with intent and design to defame the said Government of 
the United States, and John Adams, the President of the 
United States, and to bring the said Government and Presi- 
dent into contempt and disrepute; and with intent and design 
to excite, against the said Government and President the 
hatred of the good people of the United States, and to stir 
up sedition in the United States, at Windsor, in the said dis- 
trict of Vermont, on the 31st day of July last, did, with force 



362 MATTHEW LYON 

and arms, wickedly, knowingly, and maliciously write, print, 
utter, and publish, and did then and there cause and procure 
to be written, printed, uttered and published, a certain scan- 
dalous and seditious writing, or Hbel in form of a letter, di- 
rected to Mr. Spooner, (meaning Alden Spooner, printer and 
publisher of a certain weekly newspaper, in Windsor afore- 
said, commonly called Spooner's Vermont Journal,) signed 
by the said Matthew Lyon and dated at Philadelphia on the 
20th day of June last; in which said libel of and concerning 
the said John Adams, President of the United States, and the 
Executive Government of the United States, are contained, 
among other things, divers scurrilous, feigned, false, scandal- 
ous, seditious, and malicious matters, according to the tenor 
following, to wit: 'As to the Executive, (meaning the said 
President of the United States) when I shall see the effects 
of that power (meaning the executive power of the United 
States, vested by the Constitution of the United States in the 
said President) bent on the promotion of the comfort, the 
happiness, and accommodation of the people, (meaning the 
people of the United States,) that Executive (meaning the 
President of the United States) shall have my (meaning the 
said Matthew Lyon's) zealous and uniform support. But 
whenever I (meaning the said Matthew Lyon) shall, on the 
part of the Executive, (meaning the said John Adams, Presi- 
dent of the United States) see every consideration of public 
welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp^for power, in an 
unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation or 
se lfish a varice; (meaning the said Matthew Lyon) shall Tdc^ 
hold men of real merit daily turned out of office, for no other 
cause but independency of sentiment; (meaning that men of 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGIiESS 363 

real merit, holding offices under the laws and Constitution 
of the United States, were daily, by the said John Adams, 
as President of the United States, turned out of office for 
the cause of having independency of spirit) when I (meaning 
the said Matthew Lyon) shall see men of firmness, merit, 
years, abilities, and experience, discarded in their applica- 
tions for office for fear they possess that independence, and 
men of meanness preferred, for the ease with which they can 
take up and advocate opinions, the consequence of which 
they know but little of; (meaning that men of firmness, years, 
merit, ability, and experience, were, by the said John Adams, 
as President of the United States, in violation of the duties 
of his said office neglected in appointments to office under 
the laws and Constitution of the United States, and discarded 
in their applications for such offices and appointments; and 
that men of meanness, who are unfit for the exercise of such 
offices, under the laws and Constitution of the United States, 
were, by the said John Adams, as President of the United 
States, preferred to such offices and appointment, on account 
of the ease with which they took up and advocated opinions, 
of the consequences of which they were ignorant); when I 
(meaning the said Matthew Lyon) shall see the sacred name 
of religion employed as a State engine to make mankind hate 
and persecute one another, I (meaning the said Matthew 
Lyon) shall not be their humble advocate;' (meaning that 
the sacred name of religion was, by the said John Adams, in 
his capacity of President of the United States, employed as 
an engine of State to make mankind hate and persecute each 
other:) to the great scandal and infamy of the said John 
Adams in his capacity of President of the United States, and 



364 MATTHEW LYON 

to the great scandal and infamy of the said Government of 
the said United States. And so the jurors aforesaid, upon 
their oaths aforesaid, do say that the said Matthew Lyon, at 
Windsor aforesaid, on the 31st day of July aforesaid, did, 
knowingly, wickedly, deceitfully, and maliciously with intent 
and design to defame the said Government of the United 
States, and the said John Adams, President of the United 
States, and to bring the said Government and President of 
the United States into contempt and disrepute with the good 
people of the United States, and to excite against them, the 
said Government and President of the United States, the 
hatred of the good people of the United States, and with 
intent and design to stir up sedition within the United States 
against the Government thereof, write, print, utter, and pub- 
lish, and cause and procure to be written, printed, uttered 
and published, for the purpose aforesaid, the said false, feigned, 
scandalous, and malicious writing and libel aforesaid, contain- 
ing, among other things, the said divers scurrilous, false, 
feigned, scandalous, seditious, and malicious matters afore- 
said, in contempt of the good and wholesome laws of the 
United States, to the evil and pernicious example of others 
in like case offending against the statute of the United States 
in such case made and provided, and against the peace and 
dignity of the United States. 

And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do 
further present, that the said Matthew Lyon, being a malicious 
and seditious person, and of a depraved mind, and of a wicked 
and diaboHcal disposition, also deceitfully, wickedly, and ma- 
liciously contriving to defame the Government, and with in- 
tent to defame John Adams, Esquire, President of the United 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 365 

States, and with intent to defame the Senate of the United 
States, being one branch of the Congress of the United States, 
and to bring the said Government, President and Senate into 
contempt and disrepute, and to excite against the said Gov- 
ernment, President and Senate the hatred of the good people 
of the United States, and with intent and design to stir up 
sedition within the United States, did, at Fair Haven, in the 
said district of Vermont, on the ist day of September now 
last past, with force and arms wickedly, knowingly, and ma- 
liciously write, print, utter, and publish, and then and there 
did cause and procure to be written, printed, uttered, and 
published, a certain false, feigned, scandalous and seditious 
writing, or libel, entitled ' Copy of a letter from an American 
diplomatic character in France to a member of Congress in 
Philadelphia ', in which said writing, or libel, of and concern- 
ing the said Government of the United States, and the said 
President and Senate of the United States, and of and con- 
cerning the speech of John Adams, Esquire, then President 
of the United States, and of and concerning the answer of 
the said Senate to the said speech, are contained, among other 
things, divers scurrilous, feigned, false, scandalous, seditious, 
and malicious matters according to the tenor following, to 
wit: 'The misunderstanding between the two Governments 
(meaning the Governments of the said United States and 
France) has become extremely alarming; confidence is com- 
pletely destroyed; mistrusts, jealousy, and a disposition to a 
wrong attribution of motives are so apparent, as to require 
the utmost caution in every word and action that are to come 
from your Executive, (meaning the Executive Government 
of the United States) I mean if your object is to avoid hos- 



366 MATTHEW LYON 

tilities. Had this truth been understood with you (meaning 
the people of the United States) before the recall of Monroe, 
(meaning James Monroe, the late Ambassador from the 
United States to the Republic of France,) before the coming 
and second coming of Pinckney (meaning Charles C. Pinck- 
ney, one of the late Envoys Extraordinary from the United 
States to the said Republic of France); had it guided the pens 
that wrote the bullying speech of your President (meaning 
the said speech of John Adams, then and still President of 
the United States, to both Houses of Congress at the opening 
of their session in November, 1797,) and stupid answer of 
your Senate, (meaning the Senate of the United States, being 
one house of the Congress of the United States), at the open- 
ing of Congress (meaning the Congress of the United States) 
in November last, (meaning at the session of the said Congress 
in November, in the year of our Lord 1797,) I should prob- 
ably have had no occasion to address you this letter, (mean- 
ing the said writing or libel ;) but when we found him (mean- 
ing the said John Adams, President as aforesaid) borrowing 
the language of Edmund Burke, and telling the world that, 
although he should succeed in treating with the French, 
(meaning the Government of France,) there was no depend- 
ence to be placed on any of their engagements, (meaning the 
engagements of the said Government of France;) that their 
religion and morality (meaning the religion and morality of 
the French nation) were at an end; that they (meaning the 
French nation) had turned pirates and plunderers, and it 
would be necessary to be perpetually armed against them 
(meaning the said French nation;) though you are at peace, 
we (meaning the people of France) wondered that the answer 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 36/ 

of both Houses (meaning both Houses of the Congress of the 
United States) had not been an order to send him (meaning 
the said John Adams, Esquire, President of the United States) 
to a mad-house. Instead of this, the Senate (meaning the 
Senate of the United States) have echoed the speech (meaning 
the said speech of said John Adams, as President of the 
United States) with more serviHty than ever George the Third 
(meaning the King of Great Britain) experienced from either 
House of ParHament ', (meaning the ParHament of Great 
Britain;) to the great scandal and infamy of the said Govern- 
ment of the said United States, and the said John Adams, 
President of the United States, and the said Senate of the 
United States, being one of the Houses of the Congress of 
the United States. And so the jurors aforesaid, upon their 
oaths, aforesaid, do say that the said Matthew Lyon, at Fair 
Haven, aforesaid, on the ist day of September aforesaid, did, 
knowingly, wickedly, deceitfully, and maliciously, with intent 
and design to defame the said Government of the United 
States, and the said John Adams, President of the United 
States, and the Senate, being one House of the Congress of 
the United States, and to bring the said Government, Presi- 
dent, and Senate of the United States into great contempt 
and disrepute with the people of the United States, and to 
excite against them, the said Government, President and Sen- 
ate of the United States, the hatred of the good people of the 
said United States, and with intent to stir up sedition within 
the United States against the Government thereof, write, 
print, utter, and publish, and cause and procure to be writ- 
ten, printed, uttered, and published, for the purpose aforesaid, 
the said false, feigned, scandalous, and maUcious writing and 



368 MATTHEW LYON 

libel aforesaid, containing, among other things, the said divers 
scurrilous, false, feigned, scandalous, and seditious matters 
aforesaid, in contempt of the good and wholesome laws of the 
United States, to the evil and pernicious example of others in 
like case ofifending against the statute of the United States in 
such case made and provided, and against the peace and dig- 
nity of the said United States. 

And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do 
further present, that the said Matthew Lyon, being a malicious 
man, of a depraved mind, and of a wicked and diabolical dispo- 
sition, and also deceitfully, wickedly, and maliciously con- 
triving to defame the Government of the said United States, 
and with intent and design to defame the said Government, 
and the said John Adams, Esquire, President of the said 
United States, and the Senate, being one of the Houses of 
the Congress of the said United States, and to bring the said 
Government, President, and Senate of the United States into 
disrepute, and contempt, and with intent to excite the hatred 
of the good people of the United States, against the said 
Government and the Senate of the United States, and to stir 
up sedition within the said United States against the Govern- 
ment thereof, did, at Fair Haven, aforesaid, on the ist day 
of September, aforesaid, for the purpose aforesaid, with force 
and arms, knowingly, wickedly, deceitfully, maliciously, and 
willingly assist, aid, and abet in the falsely and maliciously 
writing, printing, uttering, and publishing a certain false, 
feigned, scandalous, and seditious writing, or libel, entitled 
' Copy of a letter from an American diplomatic character in 
France to a member of Congress in Philadelphia; ' in which 
said writing, or libel, of and concerning the Government of 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 369 

the United States, and the said President and Senate of the 
said United States, and of and concerning the said speech 
of the said John Adams, as President of the United States, 
to both Houses of the Congress of the United States, and 
of and concerning the answer of the said Senate of the United 
States, to the said speech of the said John Adams, President 
of the United States, in which said writing, or Hbel, among 
other things, are contained divers false, feigned, scandalous 
and seditious matters, according to the tenor following, to 
wit: * Had this truth been understood with you (meaning the 
people of the United States) before the recall of Monroe, 
(meaning James Monroe, Ambassador from the United States 
to the Republic of France,) before the coming and second 
coming of Pinckney, (meaning Charles C. Pinckney, one of 
the Envoys Extraordinary from the United States to the said 
Republic;) had it guided the pens that wrote the bullying 
speech of your President, and the stupid answer of your Sen- 
ate at the opening of Congress, in November last, (meaning 
the speech of the said John Adams, as delivered by him to 
both Houses of the Congress of the United States at the open- 
ing of their session, in November last, and the answer of the 
Senate, being one of the Houses of the said Congress, to the 
said speech,) I should probably have had no occasion to ad- 
dress you this letter,' (meaning the said writing, or libel, last 
mentioned.) ' We (meaning the people of France) wondered 
that the answer (meaning the answer to the said speech) of 
both Houses (meaning both Houses of the Congress of the 
United States) had not been an order to send him (meaning 
the said John Adams, President of the United States) to a 
mad-house; ' to the great scandal and infamy of the said John 



370 MATTHEW LYON 

Adams, in his said capacity of President of the United States, 
to the great scandal and infamy of the said Senate, being one 
of the Houses of Congress of the United States, and to the 
great scandal and infamy of the Government of the said United 
States. And so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths afore- 
said, do say that the said Matthew Lyon, with force and arms, 
at Fair Haven, aforesaid, in the district aforesaid, on the first 
-day of September aforesaid, did, knowingly, willingly, wick- 
edly, and maliciously, and with intent, and design to defame 
the said John Adams, President of the United States, and the 
said Senate, being one of the Houses of the Congress of the 
United States, and the said Government of the United States, 
and to bring the said Government, President, and Senate into 
contempt and disrepute with the good people of the United 
States, and to excite against them, the said Government, Presi- 
dent, and Senate of the United States, the hatred of the good 
people of the said United States, and with intent to stir up 
sedition within the said United States against the Govern- 
men thereof, aid, assist, and abet in the maliciously writing, 
uttering, and publishing, for the purposes aforesaid, the said 
false, feigned, scandalous, and malicious writing and libel last 
aforesaid, containing, among other things, the said divers, 
scurrilous, false, feigned, scandalous, seditious, and mahcious 
matters aforesaid, in contempt of the good and wholesome 
laws of the United States, to the evil and pernicious example 
of others in like case offending, contrary to the form, force 
and effect of the statute of the United States in such case made 
and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the United 
States. 
Whereupon, the marshal of the district aforesaid is com- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 371 

manded forthwith to apprehend the said Matthew Lyon, if 
to be found within his district, and him safely keep, to answer 
to the charges whereof he here stands indicted. 

And afterwards, to wit, on the sixth day of the same October 
aforesaid, at Rutland aforesaid, before the court aforesaid, here 
cometh the said Matthew Lyon, under the custody of Jabez 
G. Fitch, Esq., marshal of the district aforesaid, and by the 
said marshal being brought, in his own proper person, to the 
bar of the said court here, was forthwith demanded, concern- 
ing the premises in the said indictment above specified and 
charged upon him, how he will acquit himself thereof; he, the 
said Matthew Lyon, saith that he is not guilty thereof, and 
for trial puts himself upon the country; and Charles Marsh, 
Esquire, attorney for the said United States within and for the 
district aforesaid, who prosecutes for the said United States 
in his behalf, doth the like. 

Therefore, let a. jury of good and lawful freeholders of the 
district aforesaid, on the eighth day of the same October afore- 
said, at Rutland, in the district aforesaid, by whom the truth 
of the matters aforesaid may be better known — who are not 
of kin to the said Matthew Lyon — to recognise, upon their 
oath, whether the said Matthew Lyon be guilty or not guilty 
of the charges of which he stands indicted as aforesaid ; because, 
as well the said Charles Marsh, Esquire, who prosecutes for the 
said United States in his behalf, as the said Matthew Lyon, 
have put themselves upon that jury for trial of said issue. 

And afterwards, to wit, on the same eighth day of October 
aforesaid, at Rutland, in the district aforesaid, before the same 
court aforesaid, came as well the said Charles Marsh, Esquire, 
who prosecutes for the said United States in this behalf, as 



372 MATTHEW LYON 

the said Matthew Lyon, in his own proper person; and the 
jurors of the jury aforesaid, by the said Marshal for this pur- 
pose empannelled and returned, to wit, John Ramsdel, Jabez 
Ward, John Hitchcock, jun., Bildad Orcutt, Andrew Leach, 
Daniel June, Joshua Goss, Philip Jones, Josiah Harris, 
Ephraim Dudley, Moses Vail, and Elisha Brown, who, being 
called, came, and being elected, tried, and sworn to speak the 
truth of and concerning the premises, upon their oaths say that 
the said Matthew Lyon is guilty of the charges of which he 
stands indicted aforesaid, in form aforesaid, as by the indict- 
ment aforesaid is supposed against him. And, upon this, it is 
forthwith demanded of the said Matthew Lyon, if he hath any 
thing further to say wherefore the said court here ought not, 
on the premises aforesaid, and verdict aforesaid, to proceed 
to judgment against him, who nothing saith. And afterwards, 
to wit, on the ninth day of the same October aforesaid, at 
Rutland, in the district aforesaid, before the court aforesaid, 
came the said Matthew Lyon, in his own proper person. 

Whereupon, all and singular the premises being seen, and 
by the judges of the court here fully understood, it is consid- 
ered and ordered by the court that the said Matthew Lyon 
be imprisoned four calendar months; that he pay a fine of 
one thousand dollars, and the costs of this prosecution; and 
that he stand committed until this sentence be complied with. 
Costs of prosecution taxed at sixty dollars and ninety-six cents. 

Judgment entered this ninth day of October, A. D. 1798. 

By order of court: 

Cephas Smith, Jun.. Clerk. 

Mittimus issues October 9, 1798, at eight o'clock, forenoon. 

Cephas Smith, Jun., Clerk. 
I hereby certify that the preceding is a true copy of the 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 373 

record, examined and collated this 21st day of December, A. D. 

1 8 19, by me. 

Jesse Gove, Clerk Vt. Dist. 

District of Vermont, to wit: 

The President of the United States to the Marshal of the 
District of Vermont. 

Whereas Matthew Lyon, of Fair Haven, in the county of 
Rutland, in the district of Vermont, before the circuit court of 
the United States, begun and held at Rutland, within and for 
the said district, on the third day of October, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight, and of 
the independence of the said United States the twenty-third, 
was convicted of writing, printing, uttering, and publishing 
certain false, scandalous, and seditious libels, and of aiding, 
abetting, and assisting therein, contrary to the form, force, and 
effect of the statute entitled ' An act in addition to an act en- 
titled An act for the punishment of certain crimes against the 
United States,' and sentenced to imprisonment for the term 
of four calendar months, to pay a fine of one thousand dollars 
to the United States, and the costs of this prosecution, taxed 
at sixty dollars and ninety-six cents, as appears of record, 
whereof execution remains to be done: Therefore, 

By the authority of the United States, you are hereby com- 
manded to imprison him, the said Matthew Lyon, in cither 
of the jails of the United States, within and for the district of 
Vermont, for'the term of four calendar months from the date 
hereof: and on his (the said Matthew Lyon's) neglect or re- 
fusal to pay said fine and costs, you are to keep and detain 
him, the said Matthew, in imprisonment as aforesaid, until he 
pay the said fine and costs, with fifty cents for this writ, and 



374 MATTHEW LYON 

the costs of commitment, together with your fe-es, or until he 
be otherwise discharged according to law. And of this writ, 
with your doings herein, make due return according to law, at 
our said court, on the first day of May next. 

Witness, the honorable Oliver Ellsworth, Esquire, Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, at Rutland 
aforesaid, the ninth day of October, at eight o'clock, forenoon, 
A. D. one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight, and of 
the independence of the said United States the twenty-third. 

Cephas Smith, Jun., Clerk. 
District of Vermont, October lo, 1798. 
By virtue of the within writ, or warrant of commitment, I 
committed the body of the within-named Matthew Lyon, with- 
in the prison in the city of Vergennes, and left a true and at- 
tested copy of this writ, with my endorsement thereon, with 
the keeper of said prison. 

Fees of commitment, fifty cents. 

Attest: Jabez G. Fitch, Marshal. 

District of Vermont, 
Vergennes, the 9th day of February, 
8 o'clock A. M. 1799. 
The within-named Matthew Lyon, having complied with the 
within warrant, is* hereby discharged from his confinement. 
Attest: S. Fitch, Marshal's deputy."" 

The election for Congress in Colonel Lyon's district took 
place in September, 1798, when the National and State au- 
thorities combined their forces to beat him. His popularity 
was so much feared as to induce the nomination of five strong 



o " Annals T6th Congress, with Appendix Containing Important 
State Papers and Public Documents," 1620, pp. 478 et seq. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 375 

candidates with a view of dividing the Democrats and drawing 
away votes from Lyon. In a total poll of 6,989, he received 
3,482, Williams 1,544, Chipman 1,370, Abel Spencer 268, 
Israel Smith 226, scattering 99. This brought Lyon within 
26 votes of a clear majority over all, and was extremely galling 
to his opponents. His arrest followed almost immediately, 
attesting the folly and desperation of the Federalists. As no * 
one got a majority, there was no election in September, and 
another trial of strength at the polls took place in December, 
while Lyon was in Vergennes jail, in close confinement. I 
know of no other instance in American history where such 
a thing has occurred. The President of the United States 
and his whole party were actively engaged on one side, Mat- 
thew Lyon in his cell, backed by his old associates, the Green 
Mountain Boys, on the other. The result was an overwhelm- 
ing victory for the prisoner, who proved more powerful in 
shackles than John Adams in the Presidency. Lyon received 
4,576 votes, Williams 2,444, and the votes for all the other 
candidates added to those for Williams, fell about 600 short 
of Lyon's telling majority. 

There was nothing left for Adams to do but to keep him 
in prison. Fitch called in Federalist lawyers of the Chipman 
stripe to spell out more sedition in Colonel Lyon's letters 
from behind the bars, in order that, if he contrived to pay 
his fine and get his discharge, the body snatchers could take 
him again on mesne process. Meantime Colonel Lyon put 
in many anxious hours thinking how to raise the money in 
his stringent circumstances, to satisfy the vengeful judgment 
of Paterson against him. But fortunately he was not the only 
lover of liberty who was thinking about the matter. Jeflferson, 



376 MATTHEW LYON 

and Madison, and Monroe, and Gallatin, and John Taylor of 
Caroline, and Stevens Thompson Mason of Loudoun, and the 
entire phalanx of Republicans in Congress, did their share of 
the thinking-. Apollos Austin, the wealthy Jeffersonian Demo- 
crat of Orwell, Vermont, he too was thinking and pondering. 
Inspired by editor Anthony Haswell, a sufferer in the same 
cause, the yeomanry of Vermont, who erst heard the guns 
rattle at Bennington, ran their hands down their gaunt pockets 
for the poor man's mite to fling their shillings and quarters 
and half dollars into a wallet of ransom money. General 
Mason, away down in old Virginia, 

"Land of true feeling, land forever mine!" 
lined his saddle-bags with a thousand and sixty dollars in 
gold coin, and started North. Apollos Austin took incredible 
pains to gather together a thousand and sixty more in great 
big silver dollars, and went from Orwell to Vergennes with 
his strong box on the day of Lyon's delivery, since the fluc- 
tuations of shinplasters put paper money out of the question 
when dealing with alien and sedition laws' Shylocks.*^ Mat- 
thew Lyon might have laid aside his anxieties and spared 
himself the sacrifice of buying that lottery grant whereby he 
realized enough money on the prizes he sold of his houses, 
mills, factories and lands, not only to pay the fine and costs, 
but to have a surplus left to his credit of three thousand dol- 
lars.^ But General Mason paid the money, and to this day 
the descendants of Colonel Lyon reverence his memory, and 
name their children after him.^ The Senator, the same gentle- 

o " Vermont Governor and Council for 1791-1804," Vol. IV, pp. 
495-96. 

^ " Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," by Pliny H. White, p. 22. 

'^ See letter of thanks of the Republicans or Democrats of Vermont 
to Stevens Thompson Mason, United States Senator from Virginia, 
in the "Vermont Gazette," March 28, 1799. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 377 

man to whom Lyon had made the prediction at his seat in 
the House, on the passage of the sedition bill, that he himself 
would be its first victim, set out from Virginia in full time 
to reach Vermont by the day Lyon's term of imprisonment 
would expire. He carried, I repeat, in his saddle-bags, slung 
across his good steed, a thousand and sixty dollars in gold, the 
sum required to pay the fine and costs, in which the prisoner 
was cast, before he could be enlarged. 

It was a beautiful sight to see this CavaUer from the South- 
land riding abroad into the far North, with ransom for his 
imprisoned friend. How Walter Scott would have rejoiced 
to be present as this knightly Senator rode forth on his mis- 
sion of loyalty and unselfish devotion; how he would have 
revelled over those gold laden saddle-bags. The Southerners 
are called sons of chivalry. Here was chivalry and true knight- 
hood, such as the Wizard of the North depicts. What a pic- 
ture of General Mason Sir Walter would have left us. There 
is nothing in the pages of Ivanhoe or the Talisman more 
romantic than Mason's ride to Vergennes jail, to strike the 
shackles from the American John Hampden, — Matthew Lyon 
of Vermont. 

Admiral Dewey is not the first Vermonter to whom his 
countrymen have awarded a festival day. Matthew Lyon re- 
ceived one equally as impressive a hundred years ago. Dewey 
came back, as Nelson would have come, had he lived, victor 
over a foreign foe. Lyon came back, cheered like Hampden 
by the plaudits of his countrymen, on a triumphal journey 
from a prison to Congress. The vast multitude that welcomed 
Lyon as he emerged from his cell, and who followed him on 
his rejoicing way, " reached," says a Vermont writer, " from 



378 MATTHEW LYON 

Vergennes, as they traversed Otter Creek upon the ice, nearly 
to Middlebury."" 

Mr. White, in his interesting account of the scene, relates 
that " Lyon's enemies had made preparations to have him 
arrested as soon as he was discharged from jail ; but no sooner 
had the marshal opened the prison doors, and announced to 
him that he was free, than he shouted * I am on my way to 
Philadelphia,' and stepping out, started at once on his journey. 
Congress had been in session some months, and his privilege 
as a member secured him from arrest. His journey," adds 
Mr. White, " was a triumphal march. A great concourse of 
people accompanied him on his way, with the American flag 
at the head of the procession; and as they passed along, the 
inhabitants of the towns on the line of march assembled 
numerously to greet him. Even children partook of the spirit 
of the occasion. As he passed a school house in Tinmouth, 
the children were paraded at the roadside, and one of them 
offered the following sentiment: ' Tliis day satisfies Federal 
vengeance. Our brave Representative, who has been suffer- 
ing for us under an unjust sentence, and the tyranny of a 
detested understrapper of despotism, this day rises superior to 
despotism.' On his arrival at Bennington, he was welcomed 
by a large assemblage of Republicans, who greeted him with 
cheers, original songs and a formal address, to which he briefly 
responded, and then pursued his journey."'' 

Hon. William Slade, a Representative from Vermont, in a 
speech in Congress, delivered May 23, 1840, said: "The 
Democrats of the day gathered in a great assembly round the 

« " Vermont Governor and Council," IV, 495. 

* " Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," by Pliny H. White, p. 22. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 379 

jail, an assembly not equalled by any I have ever seen, save 
the Grand Convention at Baltimore, and a voluntary contri- 
bution was called for and taken up; but before it could be 
applied, the fine had been paid, either through the intervention 
of Colonel Lyon's friends in another county, or by his own 
means. As soon as Lyon was at the jail door, he proclaimed 
that he was on his way to Congress. The cavalcade which 
attended him stopped at my father's house, and there all par- 
took of cakes and hard cider in true Democratic style. "'^ 

It would extend these pages too much to multiply accounts 
of the progress of Colonel Lyon to the seat of Government. 
As he drove off with his noble wife seated by his side in a 
sleigh drawn by four horses, the rejoicing of many thousands 
of people attended him on his way. A mighty concourse 
joined his company in the journey through the State, and simi- 
lar scenes of acclamation and escort of great processions of 
people were kept up during the whole journey through New 
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I will conclude the 
description by quoting what a very graphic writer says in a 
volume published in 1899, in the Henry E. Scudder American 
Commonwealth Series, now being issued by Houghton, Mifflin 
and Company. The author is Mr. Rowland E. Robinson. He 
remarks : 

" Measures were taken for the payment of Lyon's fine in 
indisputably legal tender, one citizen of the State providing 
the sum in silver dollars, and one ardent Republican from 
North Carolina coming all the way from that State with the 
amount in gold." Mr. Robinson must correct an error which 
has crept in here in another edition, which he has borrowed 

o " Congressional Globe," 26th Congress, p. 413. 



380 MATTHEW LYON 

from Mr. Roswell Bottom's article on the subject in the fourth 
volume of the Vermont Governor and Council. It was 
Senator Mason of Virginia, not of North Carolina, who 
brought the gold. " But Lyon's political friends," continues 
Mr. Robinson, " desired to share the honor of paying his fine, 
and it was arranged that no person should pay more than one 
dollar. No sooner had he come forth from prison than his 
fine was paid, and he was placed in a sleigh and driven up 
the frozen current of Great Otter to Middlebury, attended, 
it is said, by an escort in sleighs, the train extending from the 
one town to the other, a distance of twelve miles. With half 
as many, he might boast of a greater following than had passed 
up the Indian Road under any leader since the bloody days 
of border warfare, when Waubanakee chief or Canadian par- 
tisan led their marauding horde along the noble river."*^ 

Mr. Bayard in ~a spirit of folly and spleen offered a resolu- 
tion on Colonel Lyon's arrival at Philadelphia, and reappear- 
ance in Congress, expelling him from his seat. Forty-nine 
Federalists voted for it, but forty-five Democrats voted against 
it, and defeated it under the constitutional two-thirds law. Lyon 
was back to stay, without the leave of Bayard or Harper or 
Adams, or any or all of the Black Cockades of the President, 
in or out of Congress. 

On the 2ist of January, 1801, during a debate in the House 
on a resolution to continue in force the sedition law, Colonel 
Lyon made the following remarks: "In the course of the 
debate on the present motion, my condemnation and imprison- 
ment have been introduced by gentlemen whom I highly re- 

o " Vermont — A Study of Independence," by Rowland E. Robinson, 
1899, P- 262. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 381 

spect, but without many of the agitations which belonged to 
that very extraordinary case. A number of gentlemen have 
told the Committee that they would avoid the discussion of 
my case in compliment to my feelings — all of whom, except 
the gentleman from South Carolina, have done their' utmost 
to wound those feelings. But I can tell those gentlemen it 
is now too late; I do not thank them for their pretended ten- 
derness; they have heretofore lacerated those feelings by their 
irritating and abusive language, until I have become perfectly 
callous to anything that can come from that quarter. I do 
not think by any means, that they should go round my case 
out of delicacy to me — rather let them defend the indicting 
me under the sedition law, for writing and publishing a letter 
dated the 20th June, and sent about that time by me to the 
post office of Philadelphia, which carried the postmarks 
of Philadelphia, July 7th, seven days before the law passed 
Let them defend the judge in charging the jury to find me 
guilty of malicious intentions, on the ground of my own known 
political principles; my opposition in Congress to the Execu- 
tive, where there was no proof whatever against me of such 
principles. 

"Again, let those gentlemen justify the judge in sending a 
man from the jury, because a creature of a party swore that, 
at a previous time, he had heard that juror say something like 
this: that it was his belief that Mr. L. would not be found 
guilty. This was a man who was summoned through a mis- 
take, and it was necessary to get rid of him some way or other. 
Let them defend the conduct of the judge who, in his charge, 
in order to exasperate the jury against me, descended to de- 
grade his office so much as to tell them I was guilty of forging 



382 MATTHEW LYON 

the writing called * Barlow's letter.' * Let/ said the judf-^, 
* men of letters read that letter and compare it with Barlow's 
writings, and they will pronounce it to be none of his.' Let 
those gentlemen defend the marshal in carrying me, in the 
most contumelious and degrading manner, upwards of forty 
miles from the door of the jail of the county where I lived, 
which is a jail of the United States. Let them defend that 
marshal for throwing me into a stinking cell of about ten 
feet by sixteen, the common receptacle of thieves, murderers 
and runaway negroes, without anything to keep the cold out 
where the light came in, and keeping me there four months, 
nearly one month of which without fire, not having the liberty 
to procure myself a stove, although in a cold, inclement season, 
whilst the house contained comfortable rooms in plenty, which 
I could have hired had I been allowed to do it ; but he refused, 
notwithstanding my application to him, and the entreaties of 
several of my friends, offering a security of $100,000 bail for 
my continuance in the appointed room during the time of my 
confinement. 

" Unless gentlemen can defend these things, let them speak 
no more of the superiority of this law over the common law, 
nor vindicate it upon the limits of its punishment being as- 
signed, the contrary of which I think my experience abun- 
dantly proved."* 

« " Annals of Sixth Congress, 1799-1801," pp. 973. ** -"4- 




THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 383 



' CHAPTER VII. 

THE ELECTION OF JEFFERSON TO THE PRESIDENCY — COALITION 

OF BURR AND THE FEDERALISTS FIERCE PARLIAMENTARY 

STRUGGLE AND DEFEAT OF THE FEDERAL PARTY — LYON'S 
DECISIVE VOTE — HIS CELEBRATED LETTER TO EX-PRESIDENT 
ADAMS. 

T N a notice of Matthew Lyon in Collins's " History of Ken- f 

tucky," an admirable work, the following observations 
occur:, "Just before the close of this term, on February 17, j 
1 801, on the 36th ballot, Colonel Lyon decided the painful and 
protracted seven days' voting for President, by casting his vote 
and that of Vermont for Thomas Jefferson, — making him 
President in preference to Aaron Burr."* ^ 

It is time to strip the mask from those Federalists of 1801 
who, presuming upon the ignorance of the American people, 
have claimed the credit to themselves for Jefferson's election. 
The romancers in history, like Hildreth and Henry Cabot 
Lodge, and certain foreign bookmakers who have galloped 
through the country scribbling as they rode, select James A. 
Bayard as the hero who bore into the presidency upon his 
broad shoulders the timid, intriguing, otherwise beaten 
Thomas Jefferson. And quite a number of our recent political 
pamphleteers have accepted this rodomontade as sober truth. 
Mr. Bayard hated Mr. Jefferson with bitter intensity, but it 
never was in his power, at any period during the fierce contest, 

o Collins's " History of Kentucky," II, 491. 



384 MATTHEW LYON 

to defeat him, although he made most strenuous exertions to 
accompHsh that result. It is no wonder Benjamin Watkins 
Leigh, in a moment of impatience, once inveighed against the 
Muse of History as " a lying old jade," and advised people to 
pay no attention to what she might record. In the same vein, 
but with more precision, the profound English historian, Dr. 
Lingard, rejects what is called the philosophy of history, and 
more accurately describes it as the philosophy of romance. 

The two greatest sinners in spreading abroad those fables in 
relation to the memorable contest of 1801, were James A. 
Bayard and Robert Goodloe Harper. Relying upon the 
bucolic innocence of his contemporaries, Mr. Bayard, in 1802, 
explained his reason on the floor of the House for voting the 
preceding year for Burr and against Jefferson by declaring that 
" he gave his vote to the one whom he thought the greater and 
better man."® And yet the same Mr. Bayard had written to 
Alexander Hamilton in 1801, and said that Burr's talents were 
of so low an order as to have excited his contempt for what he 
calls the " unprincipled man," and he cited as a proof of his 
incapacity, — " tell it not in Gath ; publish it not in the streets 
of Askelon," — Burr's failure to deceive one blockhead, and to 
buy two corruptionists.^ This was " the greater and better 
man " than Jefferson. Bayard's deposition in the Gillespie v. 
Smith case, in 1806, alleges a bargain of Bayard with Jeffer- 
son, which Jefferson declared absolutely false. Gen. Samuel 
Smith, through whom Bayard said he made the bargain, de- 
nied it, and sustained Jefferson's statement. Why did not Mr. 
Bayard vote for Jefferson, if he had a bargain or an under- 

o " Annals of Congress for 1801-2," p. 638. 
» " Hamilton's Works," VI, 522. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 385 

standing with him ? That is the crucial question. Actions speak 
louder than words. But Robert Goodloe Harper, who after- 
wards wrote a long string of forcible feeble denials of the more 
frank admissions made by Mr. Bayard in an unguarded 
moment just after the close of the contest in the House, was 
undoubtedly the greatest plotter of all the FederaUsts who tried 
to rob Mr. Jefferson of his victory, and to seat a man in the 
presidency who had not received a single vote for that high 
office. What must be thought of the unsteadiness of purpose 
of Mr. Harper who wrote the letter quoted below, and then 
voted in the end a blank ballot? As soon as he knew that 
Jefferson and Burr had won the election over Adams and 
Pinckney for President and Vice-President of the United 
States, he instantly took advantage of a clumsy provision of 
the Constitution which then made the two highest candidates, 
if they received, as Jefiferson and Burr did receive, an equal 
number of votes, both eligible to the Presidency, and threw the 
election in such a case into the House of Representatives, and 
he made stealthy, desperate efforts to defeat Jefiferson. Burr 
had not received a vote for the office, but that clumsy, blunder- 
ing provision, which the American people immediately after 
sponged out of the Constitution with righteous indignation, 
gave Mr. Harper his opportunity, and here is the tricky, 
seditious firebrand he forthwith wrote to Aaron Burr: 

" Washington, December 24, 1800. 
My Dear Colonel, 

The votes of Tennessee are come in and decide the tie. The 
language of the Democrats is, that you will yield your preten- 
sions to their favorite; and it is whispered that overtures to 



386 MATTHEW LYON 

this end are to be, or are made to you. I advise you to take 
no step whatever, by which the choice of the House of Repre- 
sentatives can be impeded or embarrassed. Keep the game 
perfectly in your own hands, but do not answer this letter, or 
any other that may be written to you by a Federal man, nor 
write to any of that party. 

Your friend, sincerely, 

RoBT. G. Harper."" 

Thus it appears that this Federalist did all that was in his 
power to precipitate a contest which threatened the overthrow 
of the Constitution, and a dissolution of the Union, to be ac- 
companied very likely with civil war. That these calamities 
were invited by the foregoing letter is made plain by the events 
which followed. Mr. Burr " kept the game in his own hands," 
and the contest for President kindled a flame of excitement and 
uproar throughout the Union which but for one State in New 
England, held steady and law abiding by the iron will and un- 
flinching determination of Matthew Lyon, most probably 
would have plunged the land in bloody civil war. Burr 
despatched his secret emissaries to Washington, and the Essex 
Junto and Southern doughfaces joined them in opening an 
agency for the purchase of votes. Every appliance and blan- 
dishment by which cupidity and ambition could be assailed 
and won over were put into clandestine operation. Hamilton, 
who deserves the greatest credit for his opposition to him, well 
described Burr as the Cataline of America, but so deftly did 
Burr manage this conspiracy to buy votes and cheat the people 
out of their President, that to this day when all believe it, few 



o " Niles's Register," January 4, 1823. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 387 

can satisfactorily prove it. He was a master at concealment, 
though as Washington and Hamilton had seen the real man 
through all his arts at an earlier day, so now Jefferson took his 
gauge and measure, and was prepared for Mr. Burr even when 
he came with a whole Congress of Federalists at his heels, buy- 
ing, and cajoling, and seducing whomsoever he found in the 
market for sale. 

Harper was the mouthpiece employed by the Federalists to 
sound Burr. The preceding letter makes that plain. But his 
own admissions are not wanting to prove it. " I was present," 
afterwards said Mr. Harper, " at all the general deliberations 
of the Federal members on this momentous subject, which 
were frequent and very anxious. I may, I think, safely say 
that I was as much in the confidence of those gentlemen, and 
as well acquainted with their private and individual views, as 
any other person. I had a great deal of full and free com- 
munication with them, individually and privately, which I have 
every reason to believe was frank and confidential."" Harper 
was a gentleman, and his word cannot be doubted on this sub- 
ject. Meantime he had married the accomplished daughter of 
the richest man in America, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and 
the impetuous South Carolina Federalist had become the con- 
servative Baltimore lawyer. The Marylanders previously had 
been ruled by the Federalists, and Carroll, Chase and Thomas 
did not like Jefiferson. But they were now thoroughly 
frightened over the impending loss of the capital of the United 
States, should they persist in voting for Burr. Poor Mr. 
Harper was in a dilemma. The people of Maryland were 



« Letter of Robert Goodloe Haroer, in " Niles's Register," January 
4, 1823. 



388 



MATTHEW LYON 



sending in petitions signed by thousands of Federalists, Demo- 
crats, men and women, everybody, Eastern Shore men, Bahi- 
more men, Prince George's county, Charles county, and St 
Mary's county men, from every district, urging the election of 
Jeflferson. They were rising en masse to implore their foolish 
Federalist Congressmen not to vote for Burr, as they would 
surely lose the Federal city by persisting in that mad course. 
In this awkward predicament Harper finally deserted Burr, and 
put in a blank vote on the last ballot. 

Bayard was just as badly frightened as the Mary landers, 
since Delaware was threatened with the loss of Statehood, and 
might yet become in the event of a dissolution, what the 
Philadelphians insisted she was in fact, a Borough of Pennsyl- 
vania. But Bayard was a more outspoken man than Harper, 
and a few moments after the last ballot was announced in the 
House, he sat down and wrote a confidential letter to a friend 
in Wilmington, Delaware, in which he revealed all the secrets 
of the Federalists, said they were bent on revolution, and would 
rather go without a government than to vote for Jefiferson, 
and told how the result of an election was finally brought 
about on the 36th ballot.*^ This letter was probably not meant 
for publication, and was not published until twenty-two years 
afterwards, when Mr. Harper and other gentlemen of the 
beaten party found all the plausible stories and explanations 
which they had been circulating during those many years, in 
order to molify the wrath of the American people against the 
Federalists of 1801, suddenly and effectually annihilated by the 
unexpected publication of Mr. Bayard's tell-tale letter. This let- 
ter clearly revealed the fact that ;he Federalists had lent them- 

« " Niles's Register," November 16, 1822. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 389 

selves to a desperate scheme of making Burr President, 
although he had not received a vote for that office. He styled 
them revolutionists, ready to go without a government rather 
than to vote for JefTerson, who, he declared, did not receive a 
single Federal vote during the whole thirty-six ballots that were 
taken in the House. Harper, who for years had been picturing 
the old Essex Junto and the Connecticut Blue Lights as saints 
and sages, wriggled and denied and evaded, but it was of no 
use, for here was Mr. Bayard, as if risen from the dead, denying 
it all, and depicting them as tools of Aaron Burr, and down- 
right revolutionists. Harper wrote a long, feeble apology for 
" Niles's Register," minimizing the charges of Bayard, and try- 
ing to explain them away." He seemed to have forgotten his 
own letter to Burr, urging him to keep the game in his own 
hands, and to observe a conspirator's silence while hatching 
schemes for capturing the succession. 

But there were his father-in-law, Charles Carroll of Carroll- 
ton, and all his fellow Federalists, looking beyond this election 
to the probable loss of the District of Columbia as a permanent 
seat of government. In a letter to his wife, January 15, 1801, 
Albert Gallatin remarks: 

" Maryland is afraid about the fate of the Federal city, which 
is hated by every member of Congress without exception of 
persons or parties."^ A French lady addicted to epigrams, 
who was in the Federal city at this period, observed that 
" Georgetown had houses without streets, and Washington 
streets without houses." Congressmen, according to Wolcott, 
had to live " like scholars in a college, or monks in a monas- 

" Published in " Niles's Weekly Register," January 4, 1823. 
^ '■ Life of Albert Gallatin," by Henry Adams, p. 254. 



390 MATTHEW LYON 

tery, crowded ten or twenty in one house."" Tom Moore's 
pleasantries respecting squares in morasses and obelisks in 
trees, with Goose Creek, and Tiber, and Modern Rome galore, 
are well remembered. But Gouverneur Morris was even more 
sarcastic than the Irish bard. " We want nothing here," wrote 
the Senator from New York, " but houses, cellars, kitchens, 
well informed men, amiable women, and other little trifles of 
this kind to make our city perfect."* Mrs. Abigail Adams dis- 
covered on her arrival, " here and there a small cot, without a 
glass window, interspersed among the forests."'' Everybody 
seemed to be anxious to get away from " the Indian place with 
the long name in the woods on the Potomac." 

No wonder that the Mar\'landers were demoralized. Hav- 
ing won the capital after a desperate struggle, they read its 
doom in the eyes of Congressmen, and knew, if no President 
was chosen, its loss was inevitable. This selfish fear alone 
made them desert Burr, although Jefiferson did not get a single 
Federal vote from Maryland throughout the contest. Salutary 
fear also disciplined Mr. Bayard in a similar manner. His 
alarm for Delaware, not his patriotism, as he himself bluntly 
admitted, controlled his final action. To John Adams he thus 
wrote: "Representing the smallest State in the Union, without 
resources which could furnish the means of self-protection, I 
was compelled by the obligation of a sacred duty, so to act, as 
not to hazard the Constitution, upon which the political exis- 
tence of the State depends. "'^ That is, Delaware was threatened 
with extinction, and in order to save his little State, Bayard, 



« Gibbs's " Administrations of Washington and Adams," II, 239. 
^ Sparks's " Life and Writings of Gouverneur Morris," III, 129. 
* " Mrs. Adams's Letters," II, 239. 
^ Randall's " Life of Jefferson," II, 622. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 39I 

who had voted thirty-five times for Aaron Burr, voted blank 
on the last ballot. Is it not sublime impudence on the part of 
political pamphleteers to set up a claim that James A. Bayard 
elected Jefiferson President? If no President should be chosen 
before the 4th of March, the Government would be dissolved. 
A new convention of the States would next be called, and 
then a long farewell to Washington as the Federal capital. 
Poor little Delaware, shorn in such contingency, of her con- 
sequence in the Senate and House, would probably become a 
Borough of Pennsylvania. " The very word convention," 
wrote Jefferson to Monroe, " gives them the horrors."® 

The preposterous claim that the Federalists elected Jefiferson 
should never be advanced in any book claiming the respectable 
title of history. " He appears to have been indebted to them," 
says Dr. Randall in his " Life of Jefiferson," " in the same 
manner and degree that he who is not blown up by a mine on 
which he stands, is indebted to the forbearance of his foe who 
could not fire it without rendering himself the first and certain 
victim."* 

Eight States voted for Jefiferson, six for Burr, and two were 
divided — making sixteen States, the whole number. If one 
more vote came to Jefiferson, it would be enough to elect. 
From the first we now know, that Matthew Lyon would give 
that vote. Gouverneur Morris, Senator from New York, was 
entirely opposed to the election of a man as President who had 
not received a single vote of the people for the ofifice. He was 
the uncle of Lewis R. Morris, the member from Vermont, who 
divided the vote of that State with Matthew Lyon. The 

o " Jefferson's Works," IV, 354. 
^ Randall's " Jefferson," II, 602. 



392 MATTHEW LYON 

Senator was able to control his nephew's vote. Why then, it 
may be asked, was it cast thirty-five times for Burr? The itch 
for office is the probable answer to that question. Jefferson 
thus explains it: "February the 14th. General Armstrong 
tells me, that Gouverneur Morris, in conversation with him to- 
day, on the scene which is passing, expressed himself thus: 
' How comes it,' says he, ' that Burr, who is four hundred miles 
off, (at Albany,) has agents here at work with great activity, 
while Mr. Jefferson, who is on the spot, does nothing? ' This 
explains the ambiguous conduct of himself and his nephew, 
Lewis Morris, and that they were holding themselves free for a 
prize; i. e., some office either to the uncle or nephew."" 

The correspondence of Senator Morris makes it clear that he 
opposed Burr. December 19, 1800, in a letter to Hamilton, he 
said : " Since it was evidently the intention of our fellow- 
citizens to make Mr. Jefferson their President, it seems proper 
to fulfil that intention."^ February i, 1801, he said, in a letter 
to Robert Troup, speaking of the balloting of the States in the 
House: " One is divided, and one is doubtful, that is to say, it 
will be for Mr. Jefferson, or divided."*' February 20, 1801, he 
wrote to Robert R. Livingston, and said: "I greatly dis- 
approved, and openly disapproved, the attempt to choose Mr. 
Burr."'^ 

Energetic efforts to capture the vote of Matthew Lyon in the 
profligate scramble were made. Jefferson charges that 
Bayard offered inducements of high office to Samuel Smith of 
Maryland, and tempted Robert R. Livingston of New York. 

o " Jefferson's Works," IX, 202-3. 
^ Sparks's " Morris," III, 132. 
<^ Ibid, 150-151. 
<* Ibid, 154. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 393 

" To Dr. Linn," he adds, " they have offered the government 
of New Jersey."" Aaron Burr, we learn on the same high 
authority, in conversation with Colonel Hitchburn of Massa- 
chusetts, said: " WTiy, our friends must join the Federalists, 
and give the President. ' But,' says Hitchburn, * who is to be 
our Vice-President? ' Colonel Burr answered, ' Mr. Jeffer- 
son.' "'' Even if they succeeded in getting all these votes, the 
traffickers still needed Vermont to make the majority. They 
might as well have tried to topple the highest peak of the 
Green Mountains into Lake Champlain as to attempt to cap- 
ture that State. Lyon was a born fighter of corruption and 
corruptionists. 

I again quote Jefferson. He had invited Lyon to dinner at 
the President's house, and makes this note on one of the 
topics discussed: "December the 31, 1803. After dinner to- 
day, the pamphlet on the conduct of Colonel Burr being the 
subject of conversation, Matthew Lyon noticed the insinua- 
tions against the Republicans at Washington, pending the 
Presidential election, and expressed his wish that every thing 
was spoken out that was known; that it would then appear on 
which side there was a bidding for votes, and he declared that 
John Brown of Rhode Island, urging him to vote for Colonel 
Burr, used these words: ' What is it you want, Colonel Lyon? 
Is it office, is it money? Only say what you want, and you 
shall have it/ "" But like Horatius at the Bridge, Lyon stood 
firm, a host in himself, until finally Representative Morris, 
nephew of the anti-Burr Senator, withdrew from the House, 
and Lyon cast the vote of Vermont for Jefferson, giving him 

« " Jefferson's Works," IX, 202. 
6 Ibid, 204. 
c Ibid, 204. 



394 



MATTHEW LYON 



the ninth State, a majority, and electing him. " The Federal- 
ists," says Gallatin, " had but one proper mode to pursue, and 
that was for the whole party to come over; instead of which 
they contrived merely to sufifer Mr. Jefiferson to be chosen, 
without a single man of theirs voting for him."" 

In addition to the fears of Bayard for his little Borough of 
Delaware, and of the Marylanders for the Capital, the whole 
New England delegations began to snuff danger to the North 
and South of them. The two boldest Governors in America, 
McKean in Pennsylvania, and Monroe in Virginia, were arm- 
ing, and General Darke's brigade at Harpers Ferry was getting 
ready to march on Washington, and " know the reason why " 
Jefiferson should not be President.'' If any usurper had been 
chosen by the Federal rump, he undoubtedly would have been 
overthrown by an aroused people. " It was rumored," said 
Albert Gallatin in a letter to Henry A. Muhlenberg, written so 
late as May 8, 1848, " and though I did not know it from my 
own knowledge, I believe it was true, that a number of men 
from Maryland and Virginia, amounting, it was said, to fifteen 
hundred (a number undoubtedly greatly exaggerated), had de- 
termined to repair to Washington on the 4th of March for the 
purpose of putting to death the usurping, pretended Presi- 
dent."" This of course he only meant in case the scheme had 
been carried out. 

All honor to Matthew Lyon at this great crisis of American 
history. The Federalists under the arrogant orders of John 



«" Life of Gallatin," p. 263. 

*" Speech of John Randolph of Roanoke in the House of Representa- 
tives, January 31, 1817; "Annals of the 14th Congress," pp. 805-806. 
" " Life of Albert Gallatin," p. 249. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 395 

Adams had thrown him into a dungeon to get him out of the 
way, but they could not keep him there, and were now con- 
fronted with a Democratic State in the hitherto soHd phalanx 
of New England Federalism, the vote of which State was at 
last in the keeping and custody of this fearless Democrat. On 
every ballot Vermont gave one-half of its vote for Thomas 
Jefiferson, and on the thirty-sixth or last one Lyon prevailed by 
the retirement of Morris, and placed Vermont with Virginia 
on the side of the man who was the people's choice for Presi- 
dent. "The public mind," says the antiquarian, Pliny H. 
White, " was in the highest degree agitated with the contest. 
The House remained in session without formal adjournment," 
—(he might have added that John Randolph charged Bayard 
with bringing about this session or sitting in the vain hope of 
starving the Democrats into surrender,) " for seven successive 
days; and the excitement both in and out of the House rose to 
such a height as to render it absolutely necessary to the public 
welfare that the controversy should be ended in one way or 
another. The Federalists becoming convinced that it was im- 
possible to elect Burr, reluctantly decided to allow Jefferson to 
be chosen. It was arranged that Mr. Morris should absent 
himself from the next balloting, which he accordingly did, and 
Lyon cast the vote of Vermont for Jefiferson, giving him the 
ninth State that was needed to secure his election. He took 
considerable credit to himself for his vote."'^ And well might 
he do so. Like those who fought on Saint Crispin's day, that 
vote of patriots made them a "band of brothers." If Lyon lived 
for a hundred years, never again would it be in his power to 

o " Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," an address by Pliny H. 
White, p. 23. 



396 MATTHEW LYON 

render his beloved country so signal a service. If it were 
needed, but it is not, I might extend this chapter to undue 
limits by extracts from contemporary opinion, and the writings 
of others of subsequent periods, to prove that Lyon had routed 
the Federalists or Burrites, and made certain the triumph of 
the great apostle of Democracy in that epoch-making struggle 
in the House of Representatives. " Colonel Matthew Lyon," 
says F. S. Drake in his instructive work commemorative of the 
worthies of the Republic, " gave the vote that made Jefiferson 
President."" " The fact," says Charles Lanman, private secre- 
tary and esteemed friend of Daniel Webster, " of his (Lyon) 
giving the vote that made Jefferson President is well known."* 
Colonel Lyon's second term in Congress terminated at the 
same time with Mr. Adams's term in the Presidency, which 
circumstance, and the signal part he took in the defeat of the 
old Braintree statesman, suggested to him a valedictory letter 
that he addressed to the ex-President. I like this letter as a 
piece of English composition better than Mr. Hamilton's cele- 
brated letter on " The Public Conduct and Character of John 
Adams." It is less studied and elaborated, not as smooth in 
construction, and without Mr. Hamilton's rare skill as a dialec- 
tician. But its animus is better, its motive less unjustifiable, and 
its satirical strokes are more spontaneous and incisive. The 
graces of the schools did not belong to Lyon in nearly the same 
degree as they pervaded the rhetorical periods of Hamilton, 
but a native wit, a genuine pathos break forth now and again 
from the less cultivated but hardly less vigorous pen of the 
Vermonter that are missing in the statelier letter of the ex- 

o " Dictionary of American Biography," p. 571. 
6 " Dictionary of Congress," p. 368. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 397 

Secretary of the Treasury. I look in vain in Hamilton's cold 
and rather stilted sentences for anything as pungent as Lyon's 
description of the President's sycophants, who " furnished 
piping hot addresses every morning for breakfast," " studied 
your palate and changed the cookery of the dish oftener than 
your kitchen servants," and the Dean Swift-like sarcasm of the 
allusion to "Joe Thomas." "Your old friend, Joe Thomas, I 
am told, can scarcely find duds to cover his nakedness; I am 
surprised you did not make him a judge." The account of the 
"benevolent Mr. Ogden," and the President's rudeness to him, 
is in another vein, and proves Lyon an orator who could lay 
hold of the human heart and touch its hidden springs with 
natural eloquence. The letter is dated one minute after the 
close of the President's term of office, and in view of the cruel 
treatment its author had endured at the hands of Mr. Adams, 
and the dramatic ending of the fierce political battle between 
the two distinguished combatants, I am induced to reproduce 
it here in full, as a pendant to the election of Mr. Jefferson by 
virtue of the vote of the prisoner of Vergennes jail. 

Letter from Matthew Lyon, late Representative in Congress 
from the State of Vermont, to Citizen John Adams." 

" City of Washington, 

59 minutes before one, a. m. 

March 4, 1801. 
Fellow Citizen: 

Four years ago this day, you became President of the United 

States, and I a Representative of the people in Congress; this 

day has brought us once more on a level; the acquaintance 

oprom the "Historical Magazine," December, 1873, vol. II, p. 360 
et seq. 



398 MATTHEW LYON 

we have had together entitles me to the hberty I take, when 
you are going to depart for Quincy, by and with the consent 
and advice of the good people of the United States, to bid you 
a hearty farewell. This appears to me more proper, as I am 
going to retire, of my own accord, to the extreme western 
parts of the United States, where I had fixed myself an asylum 
from the persecutions of a party, the most base, cruel, assum- 
ing and faithless, that ever disgraced the councils of any nation. 
That party are now happily humbled in " dust and ashes, before 
the indignant frowns of an injured country," but their deeds 
never can be forgotten. 

In this valedictory, I propose, without further ceremony, 
to bring to your view, a retrospect of some part at least, 
of your public conduct during the last four years. In 
doing this, I shall not trouble you or myself with 
the fair promises in your inauguration speech, nor those 
three volumes, in which is displayed your love of roy- 
alty and Great Britain. Your early endeavors to in- 
volve this country in an endless war, and draw forth her 
resources on the side of monarchy against republicanism, forms 
a trait in your history which much more deserves my notice. 
Your first speech to the Fifth Congress, containing groundless 
insinuations, that Charles C. Pinckney was authorized to dis- 
cuss and investigate the demands of the French nation for 
redress, of what they called grievances, presaged with your 
retirement — and when looking over that speech I beg you to 
reflect on the base manner in which you abused Mr. Monroe, 
and the French government, because he had, according to his 
instructions, cultivated a good understanding with that govern- 
ment; and on your childish nonsense about dividing the people 
from the government. I hope, sir, you are not past blushing 
at what a school boy would be ashamed of. The people of 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 399 

this country can never be divided from the government; you 
have brought yourself into hatred and contempt with them, 
but they never could be induced to view you and your execu- 
tive officers as the government. No! The government they 
love and respect, and have accordingly put it into better hands. 
You will now have leisure, sir, to look over your second 
speech to the same Congress, when I hope you will recollect 
how you swelled and strutted when you were abusing the 
nation you were hyprocritically pretending to make up differ- 
ences with. 

Look at the list of laws which you sanctioned that session, 
giving new and unconstitutional powers to yourself. You will 
have time to review all the fulsome addresses to you from a 
misguided multitude; I will not pretend to describe the sensa- 
tions they will produce, when you reflect how they buoyed up 
your pride, flattered your vanity, and persuaded you the day 
was approaching and nigh at hand, when an hereditary crown 
would be offered you. Read over your answers, sir, which 
invoked more and more addresses, until the whole store of 
the folly and sycophancy of our country became exhausted. 
Pitiful indeed must be your feeling in passing home through 
the now Democratic State, New Jersey, which formerly so 
copiously furnished you with piping hot addresses every morn- 
ing for breakfast; the servility of a few of their abandoned 
citizens studied your palate and changed the cookery of the 
dish oftener than your kitchen servants. Should you stop at 
Philadelphia how melancholy must it seem to you; McPher- 
son's band of Cockade boys are dispersed or grown up into 
Democrats, no Federal mobs there now to sing Hail Colum- 
bia and huzzar for John Adams, and terrify your opposers. 
Hopkinson's lyre is out of tune, Cobbett and Liston are gone, 
the Quakers are for the living President, and your old friend 



400 



MATTHEW LYON 



Joe Thomas, I am told, can scarcely find duds to cover his 
nakedness; I am surprised you did not make him a judge. 

I beg pardon for the digression, but let me advise you to 
take water at the Federal City, and land at the nearest port 
of Quincy; the condolence of your old confederates, all along 
from this to Quincy, and the silent contempt of the multitude, 
will be too hard for you to bear, so soon after your fall, and 
may deprive you of the little reason you have left. 

But to return to the review of your administration as re- 
spects your endeavors to plunge the nation into all the horrors 
of war, after you found that the X, Y and Z fabrications did 
not blind the people sufficiently to their own interests, and 
after you found France would not be provoked by you to a 
declaration of war; that they had prudently overlooked all your 
bullying rhapsodies, and offered to meet you in the work of 
reconciliation, on the terms yourself had proposed, you in- 
sulted the patience and good sense of the American people, 
by withholding the public communication nearly throughout 
a whole session of Congress, and then after some of your ter- 
giversations, put the business of negotiation in such a train, 
as h^is kept this country more than two years longer in a 
state of half war which has destroyed some of the most valu- 
able branches of her commerce, and left the stable and essen- 
tial article of tobacco in the hands of the planter, or obliged 
him to sell it at one-third of its real value to British specu- 
lators, who have five-folded the price to the French. 

You came to the administration, sir, under the most 
favorable auspices at the time when if there were parties in 
this country, they were by no means hostile to each other; 
when the increasing revenue was sinking the public debt; when 
the Federal judiciary held a share of popularity in this country, 
and were regarded with respect; when the contributions 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 4OI 

toward the public expense sat tolerably easy on the people, 
when this country was considered as an asylum for the op- 
pressed of all nations, and there was a great influx of foreign 
riches, industry and ingenuity; when this country was happy 
in the freedom of speech and of the press; when the Consti- 
tution was considered a barrier against legislative, executive 
and judicial encroachments, and before the people were divided 
into castes of gentlemen and simple men ; before offices, places 
and contracts, were considered as the exclusive right of the 
favorite caste. Reflect a little, sir, and see this awful change 
made in four short years. I will give you a slight view of it. 
You commenced your career, sir, by professions which prom- 
ised to unite all honest men to you, but they were mere pro- 
fessions; your mad zeal for monarchy and Britain, your love 
of pomp, your unhappy selection of favorites, your regard- 
lessness of the public treasure, the hard earnings of your 
fellow citizens, has divided the people into parties and fostered 
among them envy, malice and rancorous hatred towards each 
other; father has been set against son, and son against father, 
brother against brother, neighbors and friends have lost their 
former relish for the social enjoyments. 

Under your administration, sir, a system of appointments 
has been established by which impHcit faith in your infalli- 
bility and a knack of discoloring the truth became the only 
qualification to office, or to entitle a person to a contract. 

Under your administration, sir, useless and expensive em- 
bassies have prevailed to an alarming degree. Offices and 
officers, almost without number, have been created and ap- 
pointed, all out of the favored caste; while merit and abilities 
have been disregarded; capable, discerning and popular men 
have, by you and your minions, been discharged from the 
service of their country, without being vouchsafed a reason 



402 MATTHEW LYON 

for their degradation. Your administration, sir, has been 
famous for contracts; there is not a doubt but in future the 
secret records of your Navy Office will be studied by your 
friend Wm. Pitt, and those he wishes to give favorite contracts 
to; there the oldest and the wickedest British speculators may 
learn new modes of managing advantageously about contracts. 

The judiciary, sir, under your untoward administration, have 
made alarming encroachments on the rights of man ; they have 
adopted the British maxim of non-expatriation, in the face 
of every principle heretofore held dear in this country, and 
in contradiction to many of the State Constitutions. They 
have been endeavoring to introduce the crude, cruel, undi- 
gested, inapt and obsolete system of the common law into 
our national jurisprudence; and they have, in defiance of the 
express prohibition in the Constitution made pass for treason, 
a crime defined in laws by another name, and there decreed 
to be punished by fine and imprisonment. Your conscience 
recoiled at this ; it seems you were not prepared for everything. 
Your old friend Hamilton abuses you for the only good thing 
you ever did in your life; he ought to have excused you, and 
recollected how your imagination had been tortured by the 
ghost of Jonathan Robbins. Your confederate in that case, 
Judge Bee, it seems you have provided well for in this world, 
but there is another world, to which you have sent poor 
Jonathan, where you must both meet him. May you by sin- 
cere repentance be prepared for that awful meeting. 

Under your administration, sir, and with your consent, your 
fellow-citizens have had a heavy addition to the tax on salt; 
their houses and lands have been subjected to an unprece- 
dented tax; a tax on licenses for selling the liquor but just 
before taxed; as well as an odious tax on paper, parchment 
and vellum has been instituted; and the taxes on some other 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 403 

articles of consumption have been raised. These heavy and 
additional contributions have not sufficed you to have the 
command and disposition of: No. Many millions have been 
borrowed at an enormous interest, to satiate the appetites of 
the greedy courtiers for which the future earnings of your 
fellow-citizens stand pledged. 

An Alien Law, sir, bears your signature, which unconstitu- 
tionally subjected to your sovereign will the liberty and banish- 
ment of every alien, whatever might be his connections in, 
and attachment to this country; and the terms of citizenship 
have been rendered almost inaccessible, by which the best 
disposed and the most able and useful emigrants have been 
deterred from coming to this country; and many have been 
obliged to fly from your vindictive wrath. 

Perhaps in no one instance has our Constitution, our sacred 
bill of rights, been more shamefully, more barefacedly tram- 
pled on, than in the case of the passage of the bill called the 
Sedition Law. This, sir, was your darling hobby horse. By 
this law you expected to have all your follies, your absurdities, 
and your atrocities buried in oblivion. You thought by its 
terrors to shut the mouths of all but sycophants and flatterers, 
and to secure yourself in the Presidency at least; but how 
happily have you been disappointed, — the truth has issued 
from many a patriot pen and press, — and you have fallen, 
never, never to rise again. 

It has availed you little, sir, to have me fined $1,000, and 
imprisoned four months for declaring truth long before the 
Sedition Law was passed; to have Holt and Haswell fined $200 
and imprisoned two months each; the one for calling the 
late disbanded army a standing army, and the other for pub- 
lishing the sentiments of your Secretary of War, in his letter 
to General Darke; to have Cooper fined $400 and imprisoned 



404 MATTHEW LYON 

six months, because he resented your pubhshing his con- 
fidential application to you for an office he was truly worthy 
of. You complained of the breach of confidence in the case 
of Tench Coxe, but you had forgot your perfidy to Cooper. 
Those attempts to stifle an investigation of your conduct only 
accelerated your fall. When you have read thus far you 
cannot but recollect the benevolent Mr. Ogden, and your rude- 
ness to him, that man who had formerly been your panegyrist, 
and who possessed as great a share of the milk of human 
kindness as ever filled the breast of man, who took a journey of 
400 miles through the Northern regions, to carry the petitions 
of the Vermonters for their Representative, and to try his 
powers of persuasion on Mr. Adams. Mercy for his favorite 
friend was to be his theme. I told Mr. Ogden that you were 
vindictive and revengeful, and that he would be disappointed. 
His good nature would not sufTer him to believe me. He 
tried the experiment; he failed; but how cruel was it of you. 
sir, to add insult to unkindness. After your refusing to comply 
with his request, he said you could not let him go without 
morosely telling him that you supposed it was in his behalf 
you had been solicited for an office in the Customs in Connec- 
ticut, and that his interference in behalf of Colonel Lyon had 
put it out of your power to do him any favor. Cruel indeed! 
It was enough to disappoint his expectations of flying to his 
imprisoned friend with the joyful news of his enlargement. 
It was too much to tell him his own hopes were all blasted; 
it broke his heart. Sir, he had not hoped so much on his 
own account as on account of the aged, unprovided widow of 
General Wooster who would have shared with him the emolu- 
ments. That office, I understand, was among the sacrifices 
your old friend, the General, made at the commencement of 
the Revolutionary war. But, sir, the good Mr. Ogden wants 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 405 

no place now from you or any other earthly potentate. He 
has got a place in Abraham's bosom, and he no doubt looks 
down from heaven on you with ineffable pity and tender com- 
passion. 

It is a long time, sir, since I have intended myself the honor 
of at this time writing you a valedictory. I have, however, 
put it off from time to time, as we are apt to do about things 
that concern others more than they do ourselves. Inevitable 
business has caused me to neglect this duty until the last 
moment, when I have been obliged to hurry the thing over 
much against my inclination. You will be kind enough to 
pardon the many essential omissions I have necessarily been 
guilty of. There is no doubt but by the time you read thus 
far your conscience, seated as it is, will be ready to supply 
many of the defects of my memory. 

I must finish my letter, sir, where you finish your adminis- 
tration, that is with your late nominations. I have been told, 
sir, that you have given one Secretaryship and four Judgeships 
for laying the ghost of Jonathan Robbins, besides Judge Bee's 
appointment; or, in other words, you give as a premium to 
the man who made the most learned and perplexing speech 
in your favor, the Secretaryship. It is a maxim with the 
lawyers and popish priests, I believe, that the greater the vil- 
lainy to be exculpated from, the greater the fee. 

The Secretaryship became precarious, the service rendered 
was great indeed, and not to be forgotten. The judiciary was 
the only permanent fund to be applied to, and so long as there 
was a brother or a sister to make claim, they, it seems, have 
been ordered to draw upon it until all were satisfied. The 
same fund has served you an excellent purpose for legacies 
to your poor and distant relatives, as well as for rewarding 
the tories who have been the firmest friends to your adminis- 



406 MATTHEW LYON 

tration. Through the whole of your late nominations you 
have proceeded, sir, as if you took counsel from the infernal 
regions. Some men, (who are not thought very highly of 
either,) have spurned your nominations avowedly to avoid the 
disgrace they confer. 

I am told, sir, that when you was Vice-President you 
boasted that for the casting vote upon Mr. Madison's propo- 
sitions you would not take ten thousand pounds. By your 
administration you have rendered that vote fatal to your coun- 
try, and made it cost them millions. You seem now more 
than ever bent on mischief. Your vindictive spirit prompts 
you to do everything in your power to give the succeeding 
administration trouble; but you are as unfortunate in this as 
in most of your calculations. Your creatures are generally 
pliant reeds; they will bend to and fawn upon anybody that is 
in power. It was power they worshipped in you, not John 
Adams. 

Come, pray sir, cool yourself a little. Do not coil round 
like the rattlesnake, and bite yourself. No, betake yourself to 
fasting and prayer awhile. It may be good for both body 
and soul. That is a safer remedy for an old man in your 
situation than the letting of blood. 

Suffer me to recommend to you that patience and resig- 
nation which is characteristic of the holy religion you profess. 
I hope and pray that your fate may be a warning to all 
usurpers and tyrants, and that you may, before you leave this 
world, become a true and sincere penitent, and be forgiven 
all your manifold sins in the next. I repeat it, this is the 
sincere wish and prayer of your fellow-citizen, 

M. Lyon." 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 407 



CHAPTER VIII. 

WESTWARD ho! — FOUNDS EDDYVILLE, KY. — COL. LYON'S SON 
CHITTENDEN — OTHER DESCENDANTS — SCHOOLS OF JEFFER- 
SON AND MARSHALL — LYON's RETURN TO CONGRESS — LEAD- 
ING POSITION — VIOLENT PERSONALITIES BETWEEN JOHN 
RANDOLPH AND COL. LYON — AARON BURR — GERMS OF PRO- 
TECTIVE SYSTEM — LYON OPPOSES EMBARGO AND CONGRES- 
SIONAL CAUCUS TO NOMINATE PRESIDENT — IN RETIREMENT 

FACTOR TO THE CHEROKEE NATION — RE-ELECTED TO CON- 
GRESS FROM ARKANSAS — HIS DEATH AT SPADRA BLUFF. 

T N his letter to ex-President Adams, Colonel Lyon an- 
nounces his intention of removing from Vermont 
to the far Southwest. Governor Chittenden, his father- 
in-law, General Ethan Allen, his old commander in arms and 
family connection, and most of his intimate Revolutionary as- 
sociates among the Green Mountain Boys had passed to their 
eternal reward. The John Adams or Chipman party had sub- 
jected Colonel Lyon to such persecutions during the alien and 
sedition reign of terror, and were still besetting his path with 
so many petty annoyances, that he determined to leave the 
beloved State to the service of which he had given the best 
years of his life. His departure was a notable event in the 
history of Fair Haven. The people gathered in sorrow to 
say farewell to the founder and father of the town. Among 
them was a youth who was so deeply impressed with the 
scene that he was able seventy years afterwards to recall in 



408 MATTHEW LYON 

a letter to the author of the History of Fair Haven the white 
canvassed caravan of Matthew Lyon as it wound its way 
along Poultney river on the long journey to the more primi- 
tive settlement in the forests of Kentucky. This was the 
venerable Rev. N. S. S. Beaman, D. D. In a letter, written 
when he was 84 years of age, the Reverend Doctor says: " I 
knew Col. Matthew Lyon, and when I was quite a small lad 
I was intimately acquainted with his family, especially with 
one of his sons, Chittenden, named, I suppose, from Governor 
Chittenden. We all familiarly called him ' Chit.' He was a 
bright boy, but inflammable and impulsive as a torpedo or 
a witch quill. I came very near becoming involved in an 
Irish row with him because I modestly declined pledging him 
in a ' brandy smash,' in improved modern parlance, then called 
a ' brandy sling,' which he had paid as one of the heads of 
opposite parties in a game of base ball. 

" Of the other children of Colonel Lyon I knew less than 
of ' Chit,' because we were about of the same age, he being 
less than one year older than myself. The family removed 
to Kentucky, then known as ' the new State.' I well remem- 
ber watching the emigrant wagons, as they passed through 
Hampton, making a fine display of their imposing white can- 
vas, proclaiming their departure to the great unknown South- 
west. It was a thing to be remembered and talked about. 

" Colonel Lyon's wife was highly spoken of, and they had 
one daughter famed for personal beauty and many accom- 
plishments. My impression is that she and others died soon 
after arriving in Kentucky. Colonel Lyon was a member of 
Congress from Vermont, and was re-elected from: his new 
residence. He was a native of the Green Isle of the ocean. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 409 

and possessed all the qualities of his race. He had talents, but 
they were rough and unhewed from the quarry, and would 
have appeared more comely in the eyes of most men if he had 
been subjected to the polish of the chisel."" 

The Federalists had created a public opinion that Matthew 
Lyon was, as this reverend writer calls it, "rough and unhewed," 
but those who knew him better appreciated his strokes more 
than those of commonplace college bred men, no matter how 
much polished by the chisel. The distance between medi- 
ocrity and genius is immeasurable. The man against whom 
John Adams staked and lost the whole power of his adminis- 
tration had achieved his victory largely by his pen. The 
eloquence which, according to Thompson, electrified the Old 
Council of Safety and carried through Ira Allen's bill of con- 
fiscation against the Tories; which rebuked the insolence ol 
a Connecticut Congressman in the debate on the motion to 
excuse Lyon from attendance in the procession that packed 
through the streets to answer the President's speech, and 
made that Puritan gentleman's appeal — Allen, I think, was hi§ 
name — to " high blood " and " American accent " the occasion 
for the repudiation of Salem witchcraft. New Haven blue laws, 
and " Cromwell's bastards," very clearly proved" that Matthew 
Lyon's tongue was as ready as his pen, and as fearless and 
tripping as the best of them. At a scolding match he did 
not lower his colors even before the Ithuriel spear of John 
Randolph himself. But Dr. Beaman's description of the emi- 
grant train is interesting as the testimony of an eye witness. 
Colonel Lyon was in his element as a pioneer, Daniel Boone 



« " History of Fair Haven, Vermont," by Andrew N. Adams, pp. 
273-274. 



410 MATTHEW LVON 

was not more at home than he in the primeval forest, the vast 
wilderness, the frontier line just beyond the outskirts and 
haunts of civilization. I have often followed in fancy the 
Colonel on his long journey from Vermont to Kentucky. 
Leading his numerous retinue across the mountains of Penn- 
sylvania, thence the following spring embarking with them 
down the Ohio and up the Cumberland to Eddyville, this 
pioneer it seems to me may have been in the mind of Leutze 
when he depicted just such a scene on canvas. The visitor 
to the National Capitol has perhaps paused before Leutze's 
picture of " Westward Ho," hung upon one of the landings 
of a staircase approach to the gallery of Congress. The 
pioneer has reached a mountain summit and gazes enraptured 
on the promised land to the west. As he scales the rugged 
eminence his animated spirit seems to infuse new life into 
the wearied emigrants, and suggests appropriately the strug- 
gles and hopes of that hardy race of American pioneers with 
which the great West has been populated. Never has one 
set out who carried with him more of the founder's soul of 
pious Aeneas than Matthew Lyon on his way to establish the 
town of Eddyville, Kentucky. 

After Nashville and Clarksville, this town became the 
busiest emporium of trade on the Cumberland river. It so 
continued until the dawn of the railroad era. The mammoth 
steamers plying between New Orleans and Nashville made 
Eddyville a principal landing place. There came for ship- 
ment the teeming products of the rich back counties of Chris- 
tian, Caldwell, Hopkins and other counties of that fertile 
region, their tobacco and corn and fat cattle crowding the 
busy wharves and occupying days in loading, while one round 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 4I I 

of festivities after another in the spacious saloons of the 
steamers made a very fairy land of those floating palaces. 
Steamboat officers on the Mississippi and Western rivers were 
a race apart of right royal entertainers. 

After the adjournment of Congress in 1801 Colonel Lyon 
passed some weeks in Virginia at the country seat of his friend 
General Mason, and continuing his trip made a prospecting 
tour through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and the 
Northwest. He stopped for some time at the Hermitage with 
his friend, General Andrew Jackson, and it is said that it was 
by his advice he was influenced in the selection of his future 
home. Mrs. Roe informed me that in her childhood she 
frequently saw General Jackson when he visited her father's 
house at Eddyville, and Mr. L. E. Chittenden of New York, 
former Register of the Treasury in the days of Abraham Lin- 
coln, stated in a letter to me in 1883 that it was largely due 
to Andrew Jackson that Matthew Lyon emigrated from Ver- 
mont to Kentucky. Hildreth, in his " History of the United 
States," has several references to the intimacy between the 
two famous men. A few years later when Aaron Burr was 
plunging into treason, it was in Colonel Lyon's power, and 
he spared no efforts to break the spell of Jackson's infatuation 
for that strange and magnetic plotter whom Hamilton truth- 
fully described as the American Cataline. 

I must make a farewell quotation here from a writer whom 
I have had frequent occasion throughout these pages to men- 
tion, Rev. Pliny H. White. This gentleman's accuracy as a 
chronicler I have always admired, and his conception of the 
character of Matthew Lyon is in the main correct, although 
his want of acquaintance with facts and particulars in Lyon's 



412 MATTHEW LYON 

early life somewhat detracts from his biographical address 
upon him before the Vermont Historical Society. Referring 
to Lyon's departure from Vermont, Mr. White says: "He 
made a tour to the West and South in search of a new home, 
passing through Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and the North- 
west territory, and everywhere receiving marked civilities, 
public and private. He selected what is now Eddyville, in 
Lyon county, Kentucky, as the place of his future residence. 
Here he removed a part of his family with some other Ver- 
mont families, which he had persuaded to emigrate, and com- 
menced building the town, which having fairly started, he 
brought out the rest of his family and a number of other 
families."'* 

The first contingent, besides artisans, to arrive in Kentucky 
of the Lyon colony was chiefly made up of the members of 
the family by his first marriage, James Lyon, his two married 
daughters with their husbands, John Messenger and Dr. 
George Cadwell and their families, and Loraine, the youngest 
daughter of his first wife, or Laura, as Mrs. Roe calls her in 
the volume entitled " Aunt Leanna, or Early Scenes in Ken- 
tncky." Colonel Lyon returned to the East and removed 
the other members of his family to Kentucky, consisting of 
his second wife, daughter of Governor Chittenden, and her 
young children, and several other Vermont families, deter- 
mined to follow the fortunes of Lyon in the new country. The 
beautiful young Loraine, favorite child of Colonel Lyon and 
grand niece of Ethan Allen, after whose daughter she took 
her name, fell sick soon after her arrival at Eddyville, and 



o Address of Rev. Pliny H. White on the " Life and Services of 
Matthew Lyon." 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 413 

died during her father's absence in the East. This was the 
first death among these settlers that occurred in Kentucky. 
Mrs. Roe, in the book mentioned, gives an interesting narra- 
tive of the expedition in which so many Vermonters accom- 
panied her father to the Southwest. Many of his friends at 
Fair Haven asked him to take them in his train. After duly 
considering the project, and his means of carrying it out, 
Colonel Lyon assembled his Fair Haven neighbors around 
him, and laid before them an outline of his plans. I subjoin 
from his daughter's book, Mrs. Roe, the following interesting 
particulars: "Our pioneer looked upon them with feelings 
he dared scarce to express. At length, after weighing and 
considering the matter in his own mind, and examining his 
purse, he made them the following proposition: That he 
would take as many mechanics as would go with him, with 
their families, defray their expenses on the journey, and deed 
them a home on their arrival; and they should work for him 
at a reasonable compensation, until they paid him for the 
same. In consideration of these inducements ten families con- 
cluded to go with him, and seek their fortunes in the far- 
famed West. Accordingly arrangements were made, and they 
bid farewell to the land of steady habits and all that was dear 
to their hearts there, and started for their new home in the 
romantic wilds of Kentucky. They traveled as far as Pitts- 
burgh that fall (1799), and there remained through the winter. 
The mechanics were employed during the winter in construct- 
ing flat-boats."" Mrs. Roe next conducts the emigrants down 
the Ohio, and thus continues: 



» " Aunt Leanna, or Early Scenes in Kentucky," pp. 17-18, by Mrs. 
Eliza A. Roe, Chicago, 1855. 



414 MATTHEW LYON 

" One pleasant morning about the ist of July 1800, as the 
Colonel was promenading the deck, he said: * Madam Lyon/ 
(this was his customary manner of addressing his wife) * if you 
will come this way I will show you the first sign of our new 
home. Do you see those bluflfs in the distance? ' ' I do/ 
said she. ' Well, at the foot of those, in a beautiful bottom 
or valley, our Western home is situated. . . . There, there,' 
added the Colonel, ' I see the large sycamore tree that stands 
on the banks just where we must land. Boys, we will give 
them a few guns to let them know we are coming.' The gun 
they had with them was a small cannon — one that was used in 
the Revolutionary war — the report of which had brought to 
the bank of the river all the inhabitants of the settlement. 

"'It is they! It is they!' said Mrs. Messenger, who was 
the Colonel's oldest daughter. ' It is just like father to fire 
those guns.' 

" ' It is they without doubt,' said Mrs. Cadwell, ' and who 
shall break to them the sad intelhgence of the death of dear 
Laura? ' * I cannot,' said Mrs. Messenger and Mrs. Cadwell, 
both at the same moment. 

" ' I will save you both the painful task,' said Dr. Cadwell, 
who was the husband of the second daughter, and Laura's 
physician." 

Colonel Lyon and his wife, when they landed, were taken 
aside by Dr. Cadwell, who in as gentle a manner as he could 
employ broke the sad news to them. The death of his beauti- 
ful daughter pierced as with a sword the heart of the grief- 
stricken Colonel. "After a visit to Laura's grave," says Mrs. 
Roe, " they became composed and began to think of the 
future."* 



o Ibid., p. 23, €t seq. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 415 

Dr. Cadwell and Mr. Messenger remained in Kentucky only 
a few years. They removed with their famihes to Illinois. 
Mrs. Roe, who was an ardent abolitionist, assigns negro 
slavery as the cause of their departure. She makes this further 
remark which, if correct, adds a bit of history highly interest- 
ing to the people of Illinois: "Twice in his life did Dr. Cad- 
well give the casting vote in the Legislature of Illinois on the 
subject of slavery, and the last time the matter was settled 
permanently in favor of freedom."" 

Of James Lyon, the Colonel's oldest son, who had acquired 
the printer's trade at Philadelphia under his father's illustrious 
friend Benjamin Franklin, and next was a busy man of affairs 
at Fair Haven, I have gleaned further particulars from various 
letters written by his father, his brother Chittenden, and by 
no less a personage than Thomas Jefiferson, with whom James 
Lyon was well acquainted. After living at Eddyville for many 
years he removed to South Carolina, where he passed the last 
years of his life. I think it probable that he was the same 
person referred to by Matthew S. Lyon of Evansville, Indiana, 
in a letter written to me by the latter gentleman in the year 
1 881. Reference to this letter is made in a former chapter. 
An unfinished autobiography left by old Colonel Lyon, after 
having been gnawed by mice in the attic, finally fell into the 
hands of this grandson, Matthew S. Lyon, who could not 
possibly decipher it. " Some years later," he says, " the 
MS. was taken by a relative of his (Mason R. Lyon, I think) 
to Alabama. If I am not mistaken this Lyon was engaged in 



o Ibid., p. 44. Mrs. Roe's book was the first Abolition story pub- 
lished in this country. The first edition appeared many years before 
the second. 



4l6 MATTHEW LYON 

publishing a newspaper. I think he gave up the idea of 
restoring it himself, as I have never heard anything from him 
or it since." The description answers James Lyon, and al- 
though my correspondent mentions his name conjecturally as 
Mason R. Lyon, it is not unlikely he really meant James. In 
another letter to me, May 4, 1881, he recalls one or two pas- 
sages of his grandfather's autobiography, less mutilated than 
the rest. This one in particular in relation to Matthew Lyon's 
departure when a boy from Ireland struck me as very graphic : 
" He says in his MS. that in the gray light of the morning 
of the day fixed for the departure of the vessel he bundled 
up his little effects, stole into the chamber of his mother, 
snatched a last kiss while she slept, and before the tears 
were dry on his boyish cheek, the vessel had spread her 
white wings and turned her prow to the land of promise 
which beckoned him on with an inscrutable force to his fate, 
whatever it might be, in the new world." 

In January, 1805, Matthew Lyon wrote from Washington 
to his old friend at Fair Haven, Judge James Witherell, and 
informed him that his son James Lyon was engaged in ship- 
building on his own account at Eddyville, and by good luck 
and business management had made considerable money. 
Some years later James had it in his power to aid Mr. Jeffer- 
son in hunting down a rascal who had attempted to swindle 
the venerable ex-President, as the following interesting letter 
discloses: 

" Monticello, September 5, 181 1. 

" Sir. — I enclose you the copy of a letter from a James L. 
Edwards, of Boston. You will perceive at once its swindling 
object. It appeals to two dead men, and one (yourself) whom 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 4^7 

he supposes I cannot get at. I have written him an answer 
which may perhaps prevent his persevering in the attempt, 
for the whole face of his letter betrays a consciousness of its 
guilt. But perhaps he may expect that I would sacrifice a 
sum of money rather than be disturbed with encountering a 
bold falsehood. In this he is mistaken; and to prepare to 
meet him, should he repeat his demand, and considering that 
he has presumed to implicate your name in this attempt, I 
take the liberty of requesting a letter from you bearing testi- 
mony to the truth of my never having made to you, or within 
your knowledge or information, any such promise to your- 
self, your partner Morse, or any other. My confidence in 
your character leaves we without a doubt of your honest aid 
in repelHng this base and bold attempt to fix on me practices 
to which no honors or powers in this world would ever have 
induced me to stoop. I have solicited none, intrigued for 
none. Those which my country has thought proper to con- 
fide to me have been of their own mere motion, unasked by 
me. Such practices as this letter-writer imputes to me would 
have proved me unworthy of their confidence. 

" It is long since I have known anything of your situation 
or pursuits. I hope they have been successful, and tender 
you my best wishes that they may continue so, and for your 
own health and happiness."" 

The descendants of Colonel Lyon have been numerous, and 
well and favorably known in Kentucky and other States. The 
most distinguished of them was his son Chittenden Lyon, a 
prominent member of Congress during the administrations of 



» Letter of Thomas Jefferson to James Lyon, " Works of Jefferson," 
VL 10. 



4l8 MATTHEW LYON 

General Jackson. Lyon county took its name from him, and 
tlie people of Kentucky held him in honor and afifection. His 
nature, like that of his father, was bold, generous and chivalric. 
In stature he was a Hercules, and one of the handsomest men 
of his time. I was anxious to procure his picture for this 
volume, and sought for it in vain from several of his descend- 
ants. His son Matthew S. Lyon, of Evansville, Indiana, in 
the letter already mentioned, says: "There is no likeness of 
my father in existence. He died before photography came in, 
and while in politics, unlike some of our men of mark, he 
had no ambition to see his picture in public places. His fine, 
manly and handsome face (he was the finest looking man I 
ever saw) would have made a splendid picture. He died at 
fifty-four, and had not a wrinkle on his face. His weight 
was ordinarily 240 pounds." I was in the end fortunate 
enough to obtain the picture which this son did not think 
was in existence, but Col. E. C. Machen, his grandson, 
procured a good pencil sketch or etching of Chittenden Lyon 
from a member of his family in the West, which is reproduced 
in these pages. 

Another of his sons, the late Thompson A. Lyon of Louis- 
ville, who aided me more than any other person in collecting 
data and materials for this biography, thus wrote in reply to 
my question as to the accuracy of Rev. Dr. Beaman's descrip- 
tion of his father, Chittenden Lyon, as a " torpedo " or " witch- 
quill:" "From all I have heard, together with my recollection 
of my father, I am inclined to think that Dr. Beaman's ac- 
count of his youth is correct. He was a ' broth of a boy,' with 
so much of the blood of his father, that he was ever ready 
for a hand to hand fight on the shortest notice. When I 




CHITTENDEN LYON. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 419 

was a boy my father was known and called by everybody, 
old and young, ' Uncle Chit.' He was universally popular 
and greatly beloved. A prominent characteristic of his was to 
take sides with the weaker party in any difficulty." He was 
a man of wealth, and great energy, and business ability. 
When his father in his latter years was embarrassed in his 
pecuniary affairs, this noble son came to his relief, advancing 
over $28,000,, at that time an immense sum, out of his own 
pocket to discharge the liabilities. His habits were more con- 
vivial than his father's, and he would pass the social glass 
freely. But Matthew Lyon was a strictly sober man, while 
Chittenden Lyon, though not dissipated, kept a generous side- 
board, and indulged in moderate potations. The unamiable 
John Quincy Adams speaks of him in his Memoirs rather 
spitefully, and describes a debate in Congress at 2 o'clock in 
the morning, with Chittenden Lyon addressing the House " as 
drunk as a lord."'* The son of Matthew Lyon was hardly a 
favorite of the son of John Adams, but whatever the vitriolic 
John Quincy Adams thought or said, the fact is undisputed 
that Chittenden Lyon was a man generally and justly esteemed 
and loved, and every Kentuckian had a soft place in his heart 
for " Uncle Chit." I subjoin a letter of his which contains 
family history of much interest : 

" House of Representatives, 

Washington, D. C, April 5, 1828. 
To Hon. James Witherell: 

Dear Sir. — Your esteemed favor of the 17th ultimo was 
received this morning, and letter contained therein was handed 
to Colonel Watson. 



o " Memoirs of John Quincy Adams," VIII, 532. 



420 MATTHEW LYON 

It gives me great pleasure to receive this attention from 
the long and much valued friend of my lamented father, and 
brings to my mind the scenes of my childhood. I well recol- 
lect you and your family, and regret to learn that so many 
of them have, like my own connection, ' gone the way of all 
flesh.' You enquire after my mother. She is no more; she 
survived my father about i8 months, worn down with grief 
and affliction for the misfortune and death of her husband and 
two children in less than two years; but she found consolation 
and resignation in religion. She had been for the last twelve 
years of her somewhat eventful life an exemplary member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Churchy and died in full hope and 
faith of sleeping in the arms of her God. My eldest half- 
brother, James Lyon, died in South Carolina about four years 
since, poor. My eldest half-sister, Ann Messenger, and her 
family reside in Illinois near Belleville. Her husband is in 
comfortable circumstances, and very respectable. Sister 
Pamelia resides in the same State; her husband, Dr. Geo. Cad- 
well, died some two years since, leaving seven unmarried 
daughters, and no son, (his only one having died some years 
before him) in moderate circumstances. My half-brother, 
Elijah G. Galusha, resides in Kentucky, near me. He married 
the daughter of Mr. Throop, and is a poor farmer. My eldest 
own sister, Minerva, resides in Beavertown, Penn. Her hus- 
band, Dr. Catlett, late surgeon in the United States Army, 
died a little more than three years ago, in moderate circum- 
stances. My sister Aurelia died about nine months before 
my father, leaving two orphan children. Her husband. Dr. 
H. Skinner, died about two years before her, and left a pretty 
little estate for their children. My brother Matthew lives 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 42 1 

within two miles of my residence, (Eddyville, Ky.,) and is 
doing very well — in fact, getting rich, for he minds the main 
chance and dabbles but little in politics, but is a candidate for 
elector on the Jackson ticket. My sister, Eliza Ann, born in 
Kentucky, resides also in the State of Illinois. She married a 
worthy man, but poor, and moved to that State about one 
year ago. My youngest brother, Giles, also born in Ken- 
tucky, and who lived with my mother, died in the 20th year of 
his age, about five months before my mother. 

Of those who went with or followed my father, besides our 
family, G. D. Cobb, who married Modena Clark, resides at 
Eddyville; has a large and respectable family, but is reduced 
in his circumstances in consequence of losing a valuable farm, 
which was taken by a prior claim after a long law suit, which 
he had highly improved. Captain Throop has been dead 
many years; he died as he lived, poor. His wife, second 
daughter, and youngest son went to her brother, Samuel Vail, 
at Baton Rouge, La., and are all dead. His eldest son, John, 
resides at Eddyville, a vagabond. His daughter, Betsy, is a 
widow. Samuel C. Clark resides with G. D. Cobb; is poor, 
and has lost one leg, amputated close up to the body; and last, 
old General Whitehouse, whom you no doubt recollect, fol- 
lowed my father to Kentucky, and survived both my father 
and mother, and several of the younger branches of the family, 
died about eighteen months since, having been a charge on 
my hands for many years. 

In answering your enquiries I have necessarily been led into 
a long, and to you, somewhat uninteresting letter, while a long 
speech was making upon the Tariff bill, which is still under 
consideration in the House of Representatives. 



422 MATTHEW LYON 

I have had a severe indisposition since my arrival here, 
which confined me near a month, but I am now perfectly re- 
covered. I have had the misfortune to lose my wife since I 
left home. She died on the 4th of February, and has left me 
a family of five young children, the eldest 10 years, the young- 
est 3 months and 4 days. 

Please present my respects to your good lady. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Chittenden Lyon."" 

This worthy son of a worthy father died at the comparatively 
early age of fifty-four, on the 23d of November, 1842. One 
of his daughters, to whom the heritage of beauty in a marked 
degree belonged. Miss Margaret A. Lyon, married Mr. Willis 
B. Machen, who became a Senator in Congress, and in the 
election of 1872 received the electoral vote of Kentucky for 
the office of Vice-President of the United States. Wishing to 
procure a brief sketch of this grandson by marriage of 
Matthew Lyon, I requested a Kentucky gentleman who was 
well acquainted with Mr. Machen, to send me a short account 
of his life, and from his interesting letter the following ex- 
tracts are taken: 

" Eddyville, Ky., November 22, 1899. 

Hon. J. Fairfax McLaughlin, 

New York City: 

Dear Sir. — Replying to yours of recent date, it gives me 
very great pleasure to furnish the information you desire. 

Hon. Willis Benson Machen was born in Caldwell (now 
Lyon) county, Ky., April 5, 1810, and died September 29, 
1893. All his life was spent in Lyon county. 

o A. N. Adams's " History of Fair Haven," pp. 424-425- 




WILLIS B. MACIIEN. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 423 

There can be no question but what the absolute respect of 
all who knew him fixed his status as a pure-minded Christian 
gentleman in the highest sense of the word. He drew the 
strong and weak alike to him through his manHness as a man, 
his tremendous force as an individual, and his fairness under 
all circumstances. He never temporized with wrong in the 
slightest degree. He was never known to shirk a duty, be it 
great or small. Even his political opponents always accorded 
to him honesty of belief and integrity of purpose. He de- 
spised trickery and this quality in him made it impossible for 
him to live in that retirement best suited to his tempera- 
ment. He had no natural taste for public life, though he was 
pushed into positions of trust in matters of church and state. 
Where large affairs of business requiring force of character, 
tact, skill, experience, foresight, and immense energy were 
involved, he was generally selected by the courts to take 
charge of them, and some of the largest and most compHcated 
estates in this section of country were handled by him with 
consummate skill. No taint of suspicion ever crossed his 
private life, nor was any impurity of motive ever imputed to 
him by those who knew him. 

His mind and abilities were of a high order, and from com- 
parative obscurity, such as life on the frontier necessitated in 
his youth, he rose upon his own merits to prominence, because 
his neighbors who knew him best instinctively turned to him 
when counsel or leadership were needed. He was always a 
Jeflferson-Jackson Democrat, and in early manhood was a pro- 
nounced factor in framing the Constitution of Kentucky. ,His 
unquestioned leadership as a layman in the Methodist Church 
(South) was attested by his regular selection as a delegate to 



424 MATTHEW LYON 

their annual and quadrennial conferences. His advice was 
seemingly indispensable in affairs of that denomination. 

First as a member of the convention which framed the Consti- 
tution of Kentucky, afterwards as a member of the State Senate 
and House of Representatives, then as a member of the Con- 
federate Congress, afterwards a Senator of the United States 
from this State, he was always the same courtly gentleman, 
holding the respect of his political opponents, and the admira- 
tion and affection of his friends and allies. 

He married Margaret A., a granddaughter of Col. Matthew 
Lyon, and the writer heard this from the lips of the late David 
Watts of your city, who became the head of the foremost to- 
bacco house of its day: ' When I stood up with Willis Machen 
as his best man, he and his bride were the handsomest, the 
most aristocratic looking, and best matched couple I ever saw 
in my life.' This was said after Mr. Watts had had great 
opportunity to see people in all the great centers of the world. 
He added: ' My opinion has never changed.' 

Colonel Machen won his way in the world by force of his 
own character, though he was justly proud of his ancestry, 
and here where he is buried he is mourned by all who knew him 
as one of the tenderest, and yet one of the fairest and firmest 
of men; an honor to his State and his country, and the pride 
of the community in which he spent a lifetime. 

In one of the Democratic conventions (I do not recollect 
which), he was presented and voted for by the Kentucky dele- 
gation as their choice for Vice-President. 

He was the most thoroughly self-respecting man I ever 
knew, without a taint of self-consciousness or self-importance 
that repels people. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 425 

In all the relations of life he measured up to the best tradi- 
tions of American manhood and Christian requirement. As 
son, husband, father and friend, he was ever considerate of and 
true to the relation. While he was not the eldest of a large 
family of brothers and sisters, he was the foremost, though all 
were conspicuous leaders in their circles and communities, 

Mr. Machen was bom and bred in this county, and I have 
often heard him tell of his taking the products of his father's 
farm to New Orleans on flatboats built in Matthew Lyon's old 
shipyard, and walking back, 1,100 miles, with the proceeds of 
the same in his pocket. This was before the days of traveling 
facilities, when it required both intelligence and stamina of a 
high order to meet the requirements of the time. Mr, Machen 
afterwards became joint proprietor of iron furnaces, and a 
forge from which were turned out great sugar kettles for the 
Louisiana planters, and it was at a furnace once owned by him 
that Wm. Kelly invented what is known as the Bessemer 
process for making steel. After many years of waiting for the 
proper recognition of his invention, during which Bessemer 
reaped an enormous fortune, investigation showed so unmis- 
takably that Kelly was the inventor. Congress recognized his 
claims by extending the patent in this country for seven years, 
thus giving Kelly a fortune that came from royalties. But 
few people know while traveling over the finest railroads in 
the world, that the process of making the rails was invented in 
Lyon county. 

Taken all in all, certainly this generation in this community 
will not look upon W, B, Machen's like again. Perhaps no 
man that ever lived in the community will be more missed by 
God's poor than he, and according to that Christianity which 



426 MATTHEW LYON 

he professed and practised all his life, when Willis jMachen 
passed over to a beautiful beyond, Lazarus must have waited 
with outstretched arms to welcome him to the other shore." 

A picture of Senator Machen, which my correspondent was 
good enough to send me, is reproduced in this volume. 

The late Thompson A. Lyon of Louisville, Kentucky, to whom, 
I repeat, I am more indebted for original materials in the prepa- 
ration of this book than to any other person, was a grandson, 
as is also his former business partner, Mr. John H. Roe, of old 
Colonel Lyon. These two gentlemen were the agents for 
Kentucky and Tennessee of the Equitable Life Assurance So- 
ciety of New York. Mr. Thompson A. Lyon had been in im- 
paired health for a considerable time before his death, which 
took place in New York at the residence of his nephew, Col. 
E. C. Machen, in that city on the 13th of August, 1899. I 
called on him at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel a few weeks prior 
to his decease, and he expressed a warm desire to read the 
adyance sheets of this volume. I sent them to him, and 
Colonel Machen, who had in the meantime removed his uncle 
from the hotel to his own residence, told me that he read them 
with the keenest interest. Never have I witnessed more tender 
devotion to an invalid than this nephew showed throughout. 
Everything that medical skill, unwearied nursing, and love 
could bestow was lavished by him on Mr. Lyon. Mrs. Lyon 
was summoned from Louisville, and reached New York in time 
to give her fond ministrations to her stricken one, and soothe 
the last hours of a noble and devoted husband. His remains 
were carried back to Kentucky for burial among his kindred. 
The qualities of Thompson A. Lyon were marked. His love of 
truth, desire to serve and oblige others, straightforward 




EDWARD C. MACHEN. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS /|J27 

methods, and great industry, reminded me very much of all I 
had read of his grandfather, and to his zeal and indefatigable 
industry am I, and are my readers indebted for many of the 
lost threads which he rescued from oblivion, and furnished for 
this biography. 

Other descendants there are of note, deserving of a place 
in these pages. General Hylon B. Lyon, of Eddyville, is a 
grandson of Colonel Lyon. A graduate of West Point in 
the class of '56, a brave officer in the United States army, who 
saw service in Florida, California, Oregon, Washington Ter- 
ritory, Idaho and Montana, and who joined the Confederate 
army in 1861, he was at the close of the civil war in command 
of the Department of Western Kentucky. Frank Lyon, a son 
of the General, is a lieutenant in the United States navy, and 
on board the Oregon took part in the glorious sea fight oflf 
Santiago. Still another great-grandson of Matthew Lyon is 
the Hon. William P. Hepburn of Iowa, one of the leaders of 
the Republican party, and a conspicuous member of the present 
Congress. Mr. Hepburn, like his distinguished ancestor, is a 
man of national reputation. 

There is some account of Colonel Lyon in that extremely 
rare book, " A Pioneer History of Illinois," by Governor Rey- 
nolds, a copy of which I once happened upon in the hands of 
Mr. Charles L. Woodward, who, since Sabin, is the leading 
authority in Americana among the New York book- 
sellers. I was frightened off by the price of the little 
volume, twelve or fifteen dollars, but the unique Mr. Wood- 
ward, who is as original in his ways as he is deep in the 
mysteries of first editions, addressing me by a nickname which 
he had somehow come to bestow on me, said: "Here, Mr. 



428 MATTHEW LYON 

Adirondack, if you don't want to buy it, borrow it," and thrust 
the book upon me. 

I subjoin an extract from Governor Reynolds's pages: 

" In the year 1799 sailed down the Ohio river Matthew Lyon 
and family, with John Messinger and Dr. George Cadwell, 
and their respective families. These last two named were the 
sons-in-law of Lyon, and all settled in Kentucky. Messinger 
was a good mathematician, and wrote a manual or handbook 
intended for convenience in practical surveying. Messinger 
and Cadwell left Kentucky in 1802, and landed in the Ameri- 
can Bottom not far from old Fort Chatris. They settled in 
Illinois. 

" Matthew Lyon had obtained a considerable celebrity as a 
member of Congress, from the State of Vermont. He was a 
native of Ireland, had been in the Revolution, and was a warm 
advocate of Thomas Jeflferson and Republicanism, against John 
Adams and Federalism. He possessed some talents, and 
much ardor and enthusiasm. While he was in Congress he 
had a difficulty with a member of the Federal party and spit 
in his face. He was up before Congress for contempt; but 
speeches were the only result. He was extremely bitter 
against the administration of Adams, and he was fined and 
imprisoned under the alien and sedition laws. While he was 
in prison, in the State of Vermont, his friends elected him to 
Congress, and took him out of confinement, to serve them in 
the Congress of the United States. 

" He represented his district in Congress from Kentucky for 
several terms; and was always, during a long and important 
life, an excessively warm and enthusiastic partisan in politics. 
He was at last appointed an Itidian agietit for the Southern 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 429 

Indians, and died there at an advanced age. Long after his 
death Congress paid back to his heirs the fine he paid with 
interest. It was considered in Congress that the fine was paid 
under a void law, and that it was due to principle as well as to 
his descendants, to refund the amount paid and interest. I 
voted in Congress to refund the fine and interest to his heirs. 

" Matthew Lyon was a droll composition. His leading trait 
of character was his zeal and enthusiasm, almost to madness 
itself, in any cause he espoused. He never seemed to act cool 
and deliberate, but always in a tumult and bustle, as if he were 
in a house on fire, and was hurrying to get out. His Irish im- 
pulses were honest, and always on the side of human freedom. 
This covers his excessive zeal."" Governor Reynolds evi- 
dently had but slight knowledge of Matthew Lyon. 

In looking over the Edwards Papers in the Chicago " His- 
torical Society's Collections," Vol. Ill, I observed a reference 
to Lyon, and the following foot note, p. 28, " Lyon was an 
Irishman who emigrated to America in 1759, and founded the 
town of Fairfield, Vermont, in 1783. This was the town in 
which Chester A. Arthur was born." The note is continued 
on the next page, 29, and is as follows : " It might be added 
that he (Lyon) went to St. Louis in 181 1, and in 1812 became 
a candidate for delegate to Congress from Louisiana Territory, 
but was beaten by Edward Hempstead." The year of his ar- 
rival in America was 1765, and the town he founded is Fair 
Haven. His going to St. Louis, and unsuccessful candidacy 



a " A Pioneer History of Illinois; Containing the Discovery in i673». 
and the History of the Country to the Year 1818, When the State 
Government was Organized." By John Reynolds, pp. 276-277. 
BeUeville, 111. Published by N. A. Randall, 1852. 



430 MATTHEW LYON 

for Congress in the Louisiana Territory are interesting facts, 
some reference to which is found in Lyon's correspondence. 

The following letter from Colonel Lyon was addressed to 
Ninian Edwards: 

" Washington, February lo, 1804. 

Dear Sir. — Your favor of the i8th ult. came to hand yester- 
day. I am sorry my letter from here did not reach you before 
you despaired of hearing from me, not so much on Dr. Catlett's 
account as some other considerations. 

When I came here I had in view to recommend the doctor 
for the place of Secretary of the new Territory to be formed 
in Upper Louisiana. There are so many candidates that I had 
almost given it up. The talk now is to annex to Indiana Ter- 
ritory for the present all down to N. Madrid, below that until 
it comes opposite to Fort Adams to the Natchez Territory, so 
form one new Territorial Government. 

The Doctor's concern with victualing the army has led him 
to wish for an appointment of Surgeon's Mate; for this I 
wanted no additional interest, and was happy accidentally to 
find John T. Mason capable of giving his character. Should 
I think of anything further for him I may apply to Mr. Wirt. 

Georgia cession has occupied Congress the three last days, 
and the question (which is, shall our Commissioners proceed 
with the compromise?) is not yet taken. Mr. Randolph says 
no; he had rather give it back to the Indians; he had rather the 
United States should lose the whole in a law suit; he had 
rather call out the National force and spend the National 
treasure to defend it. Other Southern members say they 
don't wish for the compromise; they are satisfied to have the 
country remain uncultivated. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 43I 

I fancy that the Southern gentry begin to be alarmed for 
their markets. They begin to see that in proportion as the 
Western country grows in population and industry, their 
markets for tobacco, flour and cotton will be overstocked; the 
Northern people want our cotton, hemp and lead, and they 
don't care how much other produce we have to spare, as they 
intend to be the carrier. 

The horrid kind of government first- proposed for the new 
acquired Territory may perhaps be imputed to this jealousy. 
I am, sir, with great respect. 

Your very humble servt, 

Matthew. Lyon. 
Hon. Ninian Edwards." 

In the year 1802 Livingston county returned Matthew Lyon 
to the Legislature of Kentucky, where he figured so prom- 
inently, that a4: the next election, in 1803, he was elected to 
Congress, and was continuously re-elected to that body until 
181 1. How different was the situation of political affairs on 
his return to Washington from that in which he was placed 
when last a member of Congress. Now he was not only on 
the majority side of the House, but he became at once a con- 
spicuous and acknowledged leader of that phalanx of patriotic 
statesmen who, having fought che good fight and won it in 
1 80 1, had returned to Washington to establish a representative 
government, in the dual sense of sovereignty which has made 
the Republic the pride and glory of Americans, the beacon 
light to the oppressed nations. of Europe, and the happiest, be- 
cause the freest people in the family of nations. I have fol- 
lowed with extreme care the course of events during the time 



432 MATTHEW LYON 

of Mr. Jefferson, and have striven to divest myself of any pre- 
possession, and any prejudice in favor of one set of men or 
against another set of men, trying to grasp the true meaning 
of the words used by Jefferson in his inaugural, " We are all 
Republicans — we are all Federalists," and of those other words 
of his, " Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and 
frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one 
another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their 
own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take 
from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." 

•Madison and Gallatin in the cabinet, Macon, Randolph, 
Giles, Nicholas, and Lyon in the House, a Senate veering from 
Federalism to the State-rights school, these were the execu- 
tive and legislative agencies which gathered about Jefferson to 
build up a government upon the plan laid down in his in- 
augural. The judiciary remained to the Federalists. Marshall 
was the residuary legatee of Alexander Hamilton, and right 
ably and firmly did he devote his great intellect to stem the tide 
of Jeffersonian Democracy which had set in irresistibly every- 
where else except in the Supreme Court. During the trial of 
Aaron Burr the President and Chief Justice strained every 
nerve, the one against the other. Tlie Court became then as 
aften\^ards, at the time of the Dred Scott decision, unpopular 
with the people. Jefferson reflected sharply on the course of 
Marshall, and almost implied a miscarriage of justice. William 
H. Seward and Charles Sumner denounced Chief Justice Taney 
in savage language, and appealed to a " higher law." 

Burr had been held to bail by the Chief Justice in the sum 
of $10,000 for a misdemeanor, and was about to be proceeded 
against by the government for high treason. His lawyer, Mr. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 433 

Wickham, at this juncture invited a company of his friends, in- 
cluding Chief Justice Marshall and Burr, to a dinner party, ap- 
prising the former of the acceptance of the invitation by the 
latter, and both appeared at the same table among the guests. 
Tucker, in his " Life of Jeflferson," states, " there was an 
evident impropriety in this association between parties thus 
related to the public and to each other, and no one was after- 
wards more sensible of it than the Chief Justice himself, but," 
adds Tucker, '' it was not an act of deliberation, but merely 
inconsiderate." If Wickham had not apprised Marshall of 
Burr's intended coming, Tucker's apologetic words would 
have more meaning. 

The Federalists made much malicious gossip over Jefferson's 
letter to Mazzei. It was a business letter with " a single para- 
graph only of political information," says Jefferson, in a long 
communication to Martin Van Buren, written June 29, 1824. 
" In this information there was not one word," says its author, 
" which would not then have been, or would not now be ap- 
proved by every Republican in the United States. * * * 
This paragraph, extracted and translated, got into a Paris pap:r 
at a time when the persons in power there were laboring undor 
very general disfavor, and their friends were eager to catch 
at straws to buoy them up. To them, therefore, I have always 
imputed the interpolation of an entire paragraph additional 
to mine, which makes me charge my own country with ingrati- 
tude and injustice to France. There was not a word in my 
letter respecting France, or any of the proceedings or relations 
between this country and that. Yet this interpolated para- 
graph has been the burden of Federal calumny * * * and 
is still quoted * * * as if it were genuine, and really writ- 



434 MATTHEW LYON 

ten by me. And even Judge Marshall makes history descend 
from its dignity, and the ermine from its sanctity, to exagger- 
ate, to record, and to sanction this forgery. In the very last 
note in his book, he says, ' a letter from Mr. JefTerson to Mr. 
Mazzei, an Italian, was pubhshed in Florence, and re-published 
in the Moniteur, with very severe strictures on the conduct of 
the United States.' And instead of the letter itself, he copies 
what he says are the remarks of the editor, which are an ex- 
aggerated commentary on the fabricated paragraph itself, and 
silently leaves to his reader to make the ready inference that 
these were the sentiments of the letter. Proof is the duty of 
the afifirmative side. A negative cannot be possibly proved. 
But in defect of impossible proof of what was not in the origi- 
nal letter I have its press-copy still in my possession. It 
has been shown to several, and is open to any one who wishes 
to see it. I have presumed only that the interpolation was 
done in Paris. But I never saw the letter in either its Italian 
or French dress, and it may have been done here, with the 
commentary handed down to posterity by the judge."** 

The Burr trial and the Mazzei letter furnish proofs of the 
antagonism which continued to the end between Marshall and 
Jefferson. Both great and good men, both founders of schools 
of politics diametrically opposite to each other in tenets and 
tendencies, time must solve the question, if it has not done so 
already, which of the two has bequeathed the better system 
to the American people 

Before the close of the year 1802 the promises of the In- 
augural Address were in a large measure fulfilled. Jefferson 
in the presidency, and John Randolph, chairman of the Com- 
« Randall's " Life of Jefferson," III, 610. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 435 

mittee of Ways and Means, and administration leader in the 
House, had wrought wonders. Both State-rights men of the 
strictest school, they worked together, and hewed to the line. 
Never in his long career did Mr. Randolph appear more favor- 
ably as a statesman than during the first administration of 
Jefferson. His oratorical powers were of the highest order, 
and I once was told by a distinguished member of Congress 
who had heard him, the Hon. William Lucas of Virginia, that 
his eloquence stirred the soul more than that of Gay, Calhoun 
or Webster, the renowned triumvirate of a later day. Mr. 
Lucas referred particularly to Randolph's speech in the Vir- 
ginia Convention of 1829-30. With marvellous talents, he 
possessed also creative genius. His English is more idiomatic 
than that of any of our statesmen. His perceptive 
faculty, like that of Edgar A. Poe or Lord Jeffreys of the 
Edinburgh Review, was of an acute kind which laid open to 
his mental vision the true relations of a subject under discus- 
sion. His wit particularly distinguished him. Abraham Lin- 
coln is the only other one among our public men who ap- 
proached Randolph in this talent. The Virginian once said 
that the paternity of two-thirds of the bastard wit of his day 
was laid improperly at his door. A more recent generation has 
attributed to Mr. Lincoln a vast quantity of more or less witty 
sayings, the origin of much of which is perhaps similarly spu- 
rious. But the caustic Democratic orator from Virginia, and 
the genial Republican President from Illinois, saw like Sheri- 
dan or Dickens the humorous side of subjects, and flashed 
with irresistible drollery, generally by a single word or phrase, 
such as going out of his way to kick a sheep, or swapping 
horses while crossing a stream, into the mirth provoking lights 



436 MATTHEW LYON 

and shades of their theme. A clever scribe might furnish a 
book quite instructive and entertaining, the materials for which 
could be culled from the speeches, letters and sayings of our 
two most famous emancipationists, the one having set free four 
hundred of his own slaves, the other four million belonging to 
other people. But alas and alack, Randolph fell away from 
Jeflferson, his former political idol, and Saint Thomas of Can- 
terbury, a name he was fond of calling him by, henceforth be- 
came a derided tutelary. Saint Thomas of Cantingbury. Dur- 
ing the three or four years that they worked shoulder to 
shoulder they had reduced the army and navy to what was 
barely necessary. Only enough soldiers remained to garrison 
the widely separated small posts on the frontiers, in general 
merely a captain's company, in no case more than two or three 
companies, and none ever large enough to need a field officer. 
JefTerson took pride in saying that it was not possible to bring 
those garrisons together, because it would be an abandonment 
of their posts. Congress abolished executive patronage and 
preponderance, under the lead of Randolph, by cutting down 
one-half the offices in the United States, Jefferson fully con- 
senting. Internal taxes were wiped out, and provision was 
made notwithstanding to pay the public debt in eighteen years. 
"Congress," exclaimed the exultant President in a letter to 
Kosciusko, "have lopped oflF a parasite limb planted by their 
predecessors in the judiciary body for party purposes; they are 
opening the door of hospitality to fugitives from the oppres- 
sions of other countries; and we have suppressed all those pub- 
lic forms and ceremonies" (Matthew Lyon must have been re- 
joiced), " which tended to familiarize the public eye to the har- 
bingers of another form of government. The people are nearly 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 437 

all united. Their quondam leaders infuriated with a sense of 
their impotence", (Hamilton at New York as "Dechis" was 
still firing paper bullets at Jefferson), " will soon be seen or 
heard only in the newspapers which serve as chimneys to carry 
off noxious vapors and smoke; and all is now tranquil, firm 
and well, as it should be."* 

Matthew Lyon at this time was in the Kentucky Legislature. 
In 1801 he had closed his career in Congress as a member from 
Vermont. President Jefferson offe^-ed to appoint him to the 
responsible and lucrative office of Commissary-General of the 
Western Army.^ Lyon declined the honor, and the President 
appointed his son, James Lyon, whose devotion to Democracy 
had been well proved, to a clerkship under the government. 
Hildreth, the unscrupulous slanderer of Jefferson and Ran- 
dolph, singles out this appointment as occasion for another 
slur upon the President." 

Having served a term among the Kentucky lawmakers, Col. 
Lyon came to Congress once more as one of the representa- 
tives of the Blue Grass Commomvealth. A ready debater, an 
authority upon parliamentary rules, educated in public affairs 
by a quarter of a century's service in State and National legis- 
latures, "he is said," remarks Wharton, "by those who recol- 
lect him at this stage to have been a man of respectable bear- 
ing, and of frank and almost engaging manner."'* The word 
"almost" might imply that Mr. Wharton had some doubt about 
it. This is not surprising when the reader recalls Cobbett's 



"Jefferson's Works, IV. 430-431. 

''Wharton's " State Trials of the United States," p. 343. 

" Hildreth's " History of the United States," 2d series, II, 468. 

^ Wharton's " State Trials of the United States," p. 343. 



438 MATTHEW LYON 

lampoons, and the avalanche of Federal caricatures of Lyon. 
Wharton derived his opinion from the newspapers. The truth 
is Lyon was a man of comely appearance, of imposing carriage, 
and strikingly intellectual countenance. The learned editor of the 
"Records of the Governor and Council of Vermont," Mr. E. P. 
Walton, has many references to Col. Lyon by those who knew 
him intimately, and his appearance, when brought in question, 
is always commented upon favorably. Mr. Walton, as well 
as a writer in the Vermont Historical Magazine, and another 
in Deming's Catalogue, lead me to suppose that he was a 
splendid looking man. Mr. Walton compares him to the dis- 
tinguished Udney Hay, or rather Hay to Lyon, and says: 
"Col. Udney Hay was a descendant from an eminent family 
of that name in Scotland, and the colonel himself is said to 
have been highly educated and distinguished for his talents — 'a 
gentleman, an imposing man, rather of the Matthew Lyon 
cast.' "" 

Our Kentucky representative was sworn in at the called ses- 
sion, October 17, 1803, and no other member was better known 
than he in all parts of the Union. He took his seat on the 
majority side, to the victory of which he had so largely con- 
tributed. In looking over the pages of Dennie's Philadelphia 
Port Folio, the leading Federal paper after Porcupine, and a 
great improvement on Cobbett, I find many articles on the 
Democrats, and among the chiefs of the party the name of 
Lyon frequently occurs. The Federal wits out of a job had 
more time to write than formerly, and Dennie, the " Lay 
Preacher," prepared quite a literary melange every week, bi- 
ography, travels, poetry and a modicum of spiteful and some- 
"" Vermont Governor and Council," II, p. 50. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 439 

times filthy essays on politics and politicians. A rather pedan- 
tic writer, under the title of "Climenole, A Review PoHtical and 
Literary," contributed regular essays to the Port Folio. In the 
seventh number, March 17. 1804, occurs the following: "I see 
nothing- to hinder our JefTersons and Burrs, our Gallatins, Liv- 
ingstons and Lyons, from being placed, in the estimation of 
future ages, on the same floor of democratic citizenship with 
Cethegus and Cataline. Spartacus, Antony and Thersites. 
* * * I found that on the birthday of our illustrious Jeffer- 
son, as also on that of Cethegus, the Hare and the Hydra were 
in present conjunction. When Burr and when Cataline came 
into the world, the fox and the serpent were ascendant. At the 
moment of the birth of Gallatin and Spartacus the heart of the 
scorpion was in right aspect with the wolf's jaw. The canis 
and ursa major were in hostile aspect on the nativity of Ther- 
sites and Matthew Lyon : while on that of Chancellor Living- 
ston and Mark Antony there was a singular coincidence of the 
star in the eye of the Bull, with that under the Goat's tail."" 

This astrological badinage indicates Lyon's party standing. 
Jefferson's friendship for him has already been adverted to in 
these pages. Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, 
Gideon Granger, Postmaster-General, Nathaniel Macon, 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Senator 
Stevens Thompson Mason, were among his warmest friends. 
John Randolph, leader of the House, in his celebrated speech 
at Charlotte Court House, Virginia, in reply to Patrick Henry, 
in 1799, spoke of Lyon in the following terms: 

"At this moment, while I am addressing you, men of Char- 
lotte, with the free air of heaven fanning my locks — and God 

o Port Folio, March 17, 1804, p. 82. 



440 MATTHEW LYON 

knows how long I shall be permitted to enjoy that blessing — 
a representative of the people of Vermont — Matthew Lyon 
his name — lies immured in a dungeon, not six feet square, 
where he has dragged out the miserable hours of a protracted 
winter for daring to violate the royal maxim that the King 
can do no wrong. This was his onlycrkne. He told his people, 
and caused it to be printed for their information, that the 
President, rejecting men of age, experience, wisdom, and inde- 
pendency of sentiment, appointed those who had no other merit 
but devotion to their master; and he intimated that the ' Presi- 
dent was fond of ridiculous pomp, idle parade, and selfish 
avarice.' I speak the language of the indictment. I give in 
technical and ofificial words the high crime with which he was 
charged. He pleaded justification — I think the lawyers call it 
— and ofifered to prove the truth of his allegations. 

" But the court would allow no time to procure witnesses or 
counsel ; he was hurried into trial all unprepared ; and this rep- 
resentative of the people, for speaking the truth of those in 
authority, was arraigned like a felon, condemned, fined and 
imprisoned."'* Many years after, when Lyon was no longer in 
Congress, he petitioned that body to refund his fine, and again 
John Randolph denounced the alien and sedition laws, and ad 
vocated the passage of a bill granting to this patriot, who had 
suffered unjustly, the relief he sought.^ In view of several 
savage parliamentary encounters between Lyon and Randolph, 
which had taken place previously on the floor of the House, the 
conduct of the Virginian on the latter occasion was not only 
just, but singularly magnanimous. 

" Garland's " Life of John Randolph," I, p. 138. 
^"Anjials of 12th Congress." 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 44^ 

When Randolph went into opposition, assailed the adminis- 
tration, and organized the Quids, there were three men to 
whom Jefferson severally turned to take his place, Nicholas, 
Wirt and Lyon, any one of whom it was thought might be 
leader of the House. He predicted that John Randolph would 
go the way of Charles Fenton Mercer, first out of party lines, 
and finally while pretending to dislike the Federalists 
as much as ever, he would be merged in that party, and at 
last would openly affiliate with them. Mercer had quietly 
passed into political obscurity, a fate which, in a letter to Mon- 
roe, Jeflferson predicted would overtake the Knight of 
Roanoke. But Jefferson was smarting under injuries inflicted 
by the fiery tongue of Randolph, and he proved a poor prophet 
in consigning him to such an ending. The truth was, which 
he forgot for the moment, such men as Jefferson and Randolph 
are not born every day. and whether they go into opposition 
or are sticklers for party regularity, they draw a space about them, 
within which they move and have their being, a sort of charmed 
circle, inaccessible to ordinary men, and from which they cannot 
be dislodged. As a matter of fact Randolph was not extin- 
guished, but as Congressman, in which position the men of 
Charlotte kept him as long as he wished to remain, as United 
States Senator by the choice of Virginia, which loved him and 
was proud of him, and as Ambassador to Russia by the appoint- 
ment of Andrew Jackson, who knew how to recognize men 
according to their merits. John Randolph was a positive 
factor all his life in the national councils, and in the estimation 
of the American people. Self-willed and wayward, he lost his 
party influence after 1805, but he continued to be during his 
whole career the most picturesque figure in American politics. 



442 MATTHEW LYON 

When Vice-President Calhoun, in 1826, was sharply attacked 
by John Quincy Adams, President of the United States, for 
not calling John Randolph to order in the Senate, Calhoun 
made this reply: "Who is Mr. Randolph? For more than a 
quarter of a century he has been a member of Congress, and 
during the whole time his character has remained unchanged. 
Highly talented, eloquent, severe, and eccentric; always 
wandering from the question, but often uttering wisdom 
worthy of a Bacon, and wit that would not discredit a Sheridan ; 
every Speaker had freely indulged him in his peculiar manner, 
and none more freely than the present Secretary of State, while 
he presided in the House of Representatives."" 

In regard to Mr, Nicholas, he was a very good debater and 
a well equipped representative, but he was not forceful as a 
leader of men. In a preceding chapter Mr. Gallatin's opinion 
of him is given, by which it appears he was a pure and able 
gentleman, but hardly the person to lead a stormy Congress. 
William Wirt was a fine speaker and a good lawyer, but never 
displayed qualities necessary to a successful politician. Colonel 
Lyon was of a different mould, and came nearer to the require- 
ments of the position than either Nicholas or Wirt. He was 
essentially a man of action, accustomed by nature and habit to 
control men, as well as being a Democrat of long experience 
and courage of the Andrew Jackson type. 

In the course of a warm discussion of the celebrated Georgia 
claims in the House on the loth of March, 1804, speeches were 
made by Caesar A. Rodney, of Delaware, John and Thomas 



o Letters of J. Q. Adams, signed " Patrick Henry." published in the 
National Journal in 1826, and of J. C. Calhoun, signed " Onslow.'" 
published in the National Intelligencer, in 1826. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 443 

M. Randolph, of Virginia, and Matthew Lyon, of Kentucky. 
The Yazoo frauds had aroused the pubUc mind, and Messrs. 
Madison, Gallatin and Lincoln, Secretaries of State, the Treas- 
ury and War, as Commissioners on the part of the United 
States, had heard and endeavored to settle by compromise the 
claims of Georgia, and those holding under the Georgia act of 
^795' to the vast territory in dispute. John Randolph had de- 
nounced the frauds committed, and opposed any settlement of 
the Yazoo controversy. Lyon on the contrary wished to see 
the country settled, and the compromise on the basis of the 
report of Madison, Gallatin and Lincoln amicably carried out. 
After he finished his argument in reply to the two Randolphs 
and Mr. Rodney, Mr. James Elliot of Vermont took the floor, 
and began his speech in this language: 

"I am extremely happy, sir, that the task which I had as- 
signed myself, of replying to the speeches of the gentlemen 
from Virginia and Delaware, has been anticipated by the able, 
and I will take the liberty to say, unanswerable speech of the 
gentleman from Kentucky. If the destinies of the American 
people are to be governed by the counsels of an individual; if 
the system of an individual is to be adopted, give me not the 
system of the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Rodney), or that 
of either of the gentlemen from Virginia (Mr. John Randolph 
or Mr. Thomas M. Randolph), but that of the gentleman 
from Kentucky (Mr. Lyon). He has displayed an equal su- 
periority in argument and in correctness of principle."" 

The Yazoo grants undoubtedly owed their inception to a 
gigantic fraud, no less than the bribery and purchase of a 
majority of the Georgia Legislature in 1795, by which the 

""Annals of Eighth Congress" (1803-4), p. 1162. 



444 MATTHEW LYON 

grants became legalized. Innocent third parties who took 
title under that law had rights which could not be disregarded. 
John Randolph, then a boy, was on a visit to Georgia at the 
time that this scandalous law was passed, and shared in the 
indignation of the people of that State against the legislative 
iniquity. A land company had been formed to protect inno- 
cent purchasers, at the head of which was Gideon Granger, 
now Postmaster-General. Randolph's rage against all who 
had part or parcel in the Yazoo business embraced Granger in 
its scope, and some writer has compared his Yazoo philippics 
to those of Demosthenes against the Macedonian. This ag- 
gressive assault was directed against all members of Con- 
gress, especially those from the Eastern States, who favored a 
compromise, and he did not spare the National Commissioners, 
Madison, Gallatin and Lincoln, who had recommended that 
such compromise on the concession of five millions only, out 
of forty millions of acres, should be made in favor of innocent, 
bona fide purchasers under the Georgia law. Matthew Lyon 
favored the compromise. Some irritation was created among 
the Eastern members of Congress by Mr. Randolph's fierce 
invectives. His barbed arrows flew in every direction, and a 
few members went so far in their complaints as to hold Mr. 
Jefferson responsible for Randolph, who was still chairman of 
the Committee of Ways and Means, and therefore, regarded as 
the mouthpiece of the administration. His attacks on the 
Cabinet ought to have silenced such complaints, but they did 
not, and the Federalists, observing the family quarrel among 
the Democrats, were not slow to add fuel to the flame. Fisher 
Ames's organ, the Boston Repertory, the ablest of the Essex 
Junto papers, was extremely busy at this period in agitating 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 445 

and promoting the dissensions. Those among the Democrats 
who complained of Randolph's personalities were compli- 
mented as spirited, independent men, and no one came in for 
so large a share of unexpected encomiums as Matthew Lyon, 
who had been writing several pretty sharp letters to the Ken- 
tucky Palladium against the "dog-in-the-manger" policy of the 
Virginia party, by which he meant John Randolph. 

Politics make strange bed-fellows. Saturnian times seemed 
to have returned, and the lion and the lamb to be lying down 
together. Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold, on this measure, 
were acting and voting on the same side, and the stern Ken- 
tucky Democrat, whom the Federalists had been vilifying for 
so many years, was rapidly becoming a "bigger man" than the 
Knight of Roanoke, a true hero in their eyes, who would no 
longer submit, even to please his favorite, Jefferson, to the 
lash of a Virginia aristocrat. If Matthew Lyon was a reader 
of Virgil, he must have thought of those words of the Man- 
tuan bard, " I fear the Greeks bringing presents." Others no 
doubt recalled them, and Hildreth informs us that "Randolph 
complained bitterly — and it was a curious instance of political 
mutation — that Lyon and Griswold, who had once come into 
such fierce collision, should now be united against the leader 
of the Republicans in the House."" In the course of the de- 
bate Randolph declared "we have had to contend against the 
bear of the arctic and the lion of the torrid zone." This was 
perhaps a sarcastic slap at the Postmaster-General and Colonel 
Lyon. "He poured out," says Hildreth, "a torrent of abuse on 
Granger, agent of the claimants, whom he accused of bribing 
members. Nor did Madison, Gallatin and Lincoln, who, as 
<» Hildreth's " History of the United States," 2d series, II, p. 542. 



446 MATTHEW LYON 

Commissioners, had recommended a compromise of the claims, 
entirely escape. Granger thought it necessary to send a letter 
to the House, asking an investigation into his conduct — a re- 
quest which was got rid of by a postponement."" 

The reader of a former chapter of this book has become aware 
of the treatment and language, unprecedented in violence, to 
which the Federalists had subjected Colonel Lyon. But 
a better acquaintance with him revealed the true character of 
the man, his ability, defiant rectitude, powers as a debater, and 
downright honesty and courage. Every one of them who had 
voted for his expulsion and who still remained in Congress, 
with the solitary exception of Dana, of Connecticut, not only 
became reconciled to Lyon, but had oflfered to him ample 
apologies for his former harsh conduct. I have before me an 
original letter of Col. Lyon to President Monroe, dated June 
7, 1817, in which particular reference to this subject is made. 
Of the FederaUsts he says: "Mr. Bayard, their champion, who 
took the lead in persecuting me, through Mr. John Rowan, 
solicited an interview with me, in order to acknowledge to me 
his regret for having mistaken my character and joined in a 
preposterous persecution against me. To this solicitation I 
yielded, taking with me Mr. Russell and two other Republican 
members from New York State. In their presence, in the 
presence of Mr. Rowan, and of the principal Federal members 
of Congress, Mr Bayard repeated his professions of regret for 
his former conduct toward me, of his esteem for me, and of his 
desire to be on terms of amity with me. until all present ex- 
claimed that I ought to be satisfied. Mr. Bayard was the last 
of a considerable number of those who voted for my ex- 

<• Ibid., p. 542. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 447 

pulsion, and had made to me the amende honorable, previous 
to which I did not speak with them unless the public business 
required it. Mr. Dana was the only member in either House 
when I left Congress who had not gone through this cere- 
mony of those who had voted for my expulsion." 

If the Federalists hoped to profit by the Yazoo scandal 
they were destined to a bitter disappointment. Jefiferson was 
re-elected President by a vote so overwhelming that it ap- 
proached unanimity. Even Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 
Rhode Island and Vermont joined the Democratic or Republi- 
can column, and every State in the Union, except Connecticut 
and Delaware, voted for Jefiferson and Clinton. The electoral 
votes stood 162 to 14, Maryland having contributed 2 of the 
14 Federal votes in the electoral colleges. "This," groans Hil- 
dreth, "was the whole of the lean minority, fourteen in all, 
which the Federalists were able to muster."" Before the elec- 
tion Jefferson wrote to Elbridge Gerry, and said: "I sincerely 
regret that the unbounded calumnies of the Federal party have 
obliged me to throw myself on the verdict of my country for 
trial, my great desire having been to retire, at the end of the 
present term, to a life of tranquillity; and it was my decided 
purpose when I entered into office. They force my continu- 
ance. If we can keep the vessel of State as steadily in her 
course for another four years, my earthly purposes will be ac- 
complished, and I shall be free to enjoy, as you are doing, my 
family, my farm, and my books."'' 

Mr. Granger had spoken to the President respecting a 
rumored coalition between the Federalists and dissatisfied Re- 



tt Ibid., p. 532. 

*» " Works of Jefferson," IV, 536. 



448 MATTHEW LYON 

publicans in the Eastern States. In referring to this rumor, 
Jefferson said in a letter to Granger: "The idea was new to me. 
* * * The Federalists know, that co nomine, they are gone 
forever. * * * j cannot believe any portion of real 
Republicans will enter into this trap; and if they do, 
I do not believe they can carry with them the mass 
of their States. It will be found in this, as in all 
other similar cases, that crooked schemes will end by over- 
whelming their authors and coadjutors in disgrace.'"* His 
confidence was not misplaced, as the astonishing vote by which 
he was re-elected showed. Yet the calm, farseeing President 
was not inattentive to the divisions in Congress among the 
Democrats, and he sought, without giving just cause of offense 
to Mr. Randolph, whom Speaker Macon had re-appointed 
Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, to conciliate 
the good will of other Democrats in whose integrity and sound 
principles he had confidence. On the 17th of January, 1806, 
the President sent for Barnabas Bidwell, a Democratic member 
from Massachusetts, and intrusted to him a secret message 
which resulted in the passage of a bill, appropriating two mil- 
lions of dollars for "extraordinary expenses of foreign inter- 
course." The object was the purchase of the Floridas, and as 
France controlled Spain, the money was to be used in the dis- 
cretion of the Executive, very probably for the most part in 
France. Mr. Randolph, already irritated by his differences 
with Gideon Granger, the Postmaster-General, and displeased 
at the selection by the President of Mr. Bidwell on the present 
occasion for the communication of a confidential message 
which would involve an appropriation of money, was disposed 
"•Ibid., pp. 542-3. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 449 

to regard it as a slight to himself as Chairman of the Committee 
of Ways and Means. Strictly speaking it was not as friendly a 
course as the President had formerly adopted, but whether Mr. 
Randolph himself was not responsible for this extension of 
confidence to another member, instead of to himself, it perhaps 
might not be easy to deny. " I reprobated " said the angry 
Randolph a short time after, "this back-stair influence. I had 
always flattered myself that it would be a thousand years hence 
before our institutions would have given birth to these Charles 
Jenkinsons in politics." The breach now was irreparable. 
Randolph became the censor of the administration, as he had 
long been the schoolmaster of the House. Jefferson had left 
it to Congress to fix the amount of the appropriation for "ex- 
traordinary expenses" in dealing with Spain and France. Ran- 
dolph made that the formal ground of his opposition, although 
he had done precisely the same thing Jefiferson now asked two 
years before in the Louisiana purchase. He charged dissimu- 
lation and cowardice on the President. Some of his speeches 
at this time are fine bursts of eloquence, but they have been 
forgotten because the groundwork was not inherently strong, 
and the logic of facts was against him. 

He had inspired fear among the members by the bitter irony 
of his wit, and the audacity with which he exercised it upon 
those who crossed his path. Matthew Lyon was quite as fear- 
less and audacious a man when once started as Randolph him- 
self, and it was not long before it became very probable that 
these two interesting and original characters would clash. If 
Randolph now drew the sword and threw away the scabbard 
to enter the lists against Jefiferson, Lyon with still more fearful 



450 MATTHEW LYON 

odds against him had defied John Adams in the meridian of his 
power. 

The defection of the leader of the House left his mantle to 
be worn by a new aspirant, if one might appear. The truth of 
history compels the admission that no one took his place, be- 
cause there was no one qualified to take it. In administration 
circles Col. Lyon was looked to as the Hector to defend the 
citadel from the new enemy, and evidences are not wanting of 
his close relations with the President and Cabinet. Aaron 
Burr, the late Vice-President, whose lynx-eyed shrewdness al- 
lowed but little that was passing to escape his observation, was 
aware of Lyon's influence, and he sought his friendly offices to 
secure from Mr. Jefferson a foreign embassy. He first pro- 
cured General Wilkinson to sound Col. Lyon on this subject, 
who assured the General that Burr could not obtain an em- 
bassy, but that he might be elected to a seat in Congress from 
Tennessee. Burr not satisfied with Wilkinson's effort, made the 
attempt in person to enlist Lyon in his support. "In the winter 
of 1805," says General Wilkinson, ''while Burr and myself were 
both in the city of Washington, I anxiously wished him to be 
appointed to some foreign embassy. My views are fully dis- 
closed in the deposition of Colonel Lyon."" On the 25th of 
February, 181 1, Lyon testified before the Congressional Com- 
mittee, appointed to inquire into the conduct of General Wil- 
kinson, and from his deposition the following is an extract: 

"Some time in the winter, 1805, coming one morning from 
Alexandria, by way of the Navy Yard, and passing by the 
house where the General (Wilkinson) lived, he called on me to 

" " Memoirs of My Own Times," by General James Wilkinson, II, 
p. 280. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 45! 

come in; after congratulating him on his appointment as Gov- 
ernor, and some other conversation, Colonel Burr's name was 
mentioned. Colonel Burr had no claim to friendly attentions 
from me. I had no acquaintance with him before the contest 
concerning the Presidential election, I had resisted the solici- 
tations of my friends, who wished to introduce me to him in 
March, 1801, on account of his misconduct in that affair. 

* * * The General entered warmly into his praise, and 
talked of a foreign embassy for him. This, I assured him, 
could not be obtained. * * * He informed me he had, at Col- 
onel Burr's request, made an appointment for me to call on him. 

* * * I called. * * * Colonel Burr * * * said 
he was very glad to see me." The witness detailed 
his conversation with Burr, and continued: " In stat- 
ing this conversation, I give the substance of all the other 
conversations I had that winter with Col. Burr at Washington, 
except that in some of them the embassy was talked of. He 
observed that my friend Wilkinson thought I would be a 
proper person, in a blunt way, to mention it to the President. 
He asked me, if I dared to tell the President that he ought to 
send Col. Burr on the foreign embassy talked of? I told him 
very bluntly, I would not."" 

In the letter to President Monroe, already referred to, Col. 

Lyon gives an interesting account of an interview between 

himself and the Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, in 

relation to Governor Claiborne. It throws no little Hght upon 

the value attached to Lyon's judgment by President Jefferson 

o Col. M. Lyon's deposition before the committee appointed by 
Congress to inquire into the conduct of General Wilkinson. " Me- 
moirs of My Own Times," by General Wilkinson, II, Appendix, 
LXVIII. Deposition given in full postea. 



452 MATTHEW LYON 

and Mr. Gallatin, The following is an extract from the letter: 
"In the phalanx of Republican Senators will appear next win- 
ter my friend, Governor Claiborne, who is warmly attached to 
me. * * * He was once in imminent political danger. I 
called at Mr. Gallatin's office one morning in the spring afterwc 
had obtained New Orleans. He looked very much disturbed. 
He inquired if I had heard how Claiborne had been playing 
the devil at Orleans. 'He had ruined himself, he had forfeited 
his station, he had been guilty of the most unpardonable impro- 
priety. I have just come from the President, who is provoked 
to the highest pitch against Claiborne, who by a legislative act 

of his own has created a bank of dollars capital, 

and for years duration. The act must be disavowed, 

and he discarded for the attempt. I had made arrangements 
for the establishment of a branch of the bank of the United 
States there, and it is understood by the directors that no other 
bank is to be allowed there.' Thus raved the cool, the de- 
liberate Mr. Gallatin, while the rash, the inconsiderate M. Lyon 
begged of him calmly to reflect on the real nature of the charge 
against Claiborne. I insisted that whether the act was prudent 
or otherwise, the Governor had not exceeded his powers, and it 
being a grant to individuals, an attempt to rescind it would be 
disgraceful, and cause disagreeable irritation. I told him what- 
ever the Executive thought proper to do with Claiborne, they 
must let the, bank alone; there will soon be business for both 
banks in that important town. I recollected putting my letters 
unopened at the Post Office in my pocket. On examining the 
bundle I found one from James Lyon, then at New Orleans, 
explaining the business, and soliciting my good offices with the 
Executive if necessary. Mr. Gallatin read it, and returned im- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 453 

mediately to the President. Claiborne's sentence was miti- 
gated to a reproof." 

So early as October, 1804, Randolph grew restive under the 
increasing evidence of Lyon's unwillingness to submit to be 
led by him, and on this very subject of Claiborne and his New 
Orleans bank Randolph urged that Claiborne should be 
cashiered. On the 14th of that month he wrote from Bizarre 
to Gallatin, and said: "On the subject of Louisiana you are also 
apprised that my sentiments coincide with your own ; and it is 
prinicipally because of that coincidence that I rely upon their 
correctness. But as we have the misfortune to differ from that 
great political luminary, Mr. Matthew Lyon, on this as well 
as on most other points, I doubt whether we shall not be over- 
powered." Claiborne's retention would seem to show he was 
overpowered, and it did not increase his love for Lyon. A few 
months later when the Yazoo question was again under dis- 
cussion in the House, Randolph's pent up rage against Gran- 
ger and Lyon burst all bounds, and he made one of the most 
furious attacks on them both ever witnessed in Congress, He 
did not spare even Gallatin himself. Henry Adams, who never 
loses an opportunity to vent his hereditary spite on Mr. Ran- 
dolph, says: "With the malignity of a bully he attacked Gideon 
Granger, the Postmaster-General, who could not answer him, 
and he only met his match in Matthew Lyon, whose old ex- 
perience now, to the delight of the Federalists, enabled him 
to meet Randolph with a torrent of personal abuse, and to tell 
him that he was a jackal and a madman with the face of a 
monkey."" Mr. Adams did not like Mr. Randolph, and omits 



" Life of Albert Gallatin," p. 329. 



454 MATTHEW LYON 

his attack from the account he gives of the quarrel, in his Life 
of Gallatin. I subjoin it here: 

"A few evenings since," said Randolph in his onslaught on 
Lyon, "a profitable contract for carrying the mail was offered 
to a friend of mine who is a member of this House. You must 
know, sir, that the person so often alluded to maintains a 
jackal, fed, not as you would suppose, upon the offal of con-, 
tract, but with the fairest pieces in the shambles ; and at night, 
when honest men are in bed, does this obscene animal prowl 
through the streets of this vast and desolate city, seeking whom 
he may tamper with. Well, sir, when this worthy plenipoten- 
tiary had made his proposal, in due form, the independent man 
to whom it was addressed saw at once its drift. 'Tell your prin- 
cipal,' said he, 'that I will take his contract, but I shall vote 
against the Yazoo claim, notwithstanding.' Next day, he was 
told there had been some misunderstanding of the business, 
that he could not have the contract, as it was previously be- 
spoken by another."" 

Lyon the next day paid his respects to Randolph by the fol- 
lowing retort: 

"The Postmaster-General has not lost my esteem, nor do I 
think his character can be injured by the braying of a jackal,, 
or the fulminations of a madman. But, sir, permit me to inquire 
from whom these charges of bribery, of corruption, and of rob- 
bery, come? Is it from one who has for forty years, in one ' 
shape or other, been intrusted with the property and concerns 
of other people, and has never wanted for confidence, one 
whose long and steady practice of industry, integrity, and well 
doing, has obtained for him his standing on this floor? Is it 



« " Annals of Eighth Congress " (1804-5), P- "O^. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 455 

from one who sneered with contempt on the impoHunity with 
which he was soHcited to set a price on the important vote he 
held in the last Presidential election? No, sir, these charges 
have been fabricated in the disordered imagination of a young 
man whose pride has been provoked by my refusing to sing en- 
core to all his political dogmas. I have had the impudence to 
differ from him in some few points, and some few times to 
neglect his fiat. It is long since I have observed that the very 
sight of my plebeian face has had an unpleasant eflfect on the 
gentleman's nose, for out of respect to this House and to the 
State he represents, I will yet occasionally call him gentleman. 
I say, sir, these charges have been brought against me by a 
person nursed in the bosom of opulence, inheriting the life 
services of a numerous train of the human species, and extensive 
fields, the original proprietors of which property, in all prob- 
ability, came no honester by it than the purchasers of the 
Georgia lands did by what they claim. Let that gentleman apply 
the fable of the thief and the receiver, in Dilworth's Spelling 
Book, so ingeniously quoted by himself, in his own case, and 
give up the stolen men in his possession. I say, sir, these 
charges have come from a person whose fortune, leisure and 
genius have enabled him to obtain a great share of the wis- 
dom of the schools, but who in years, experience, and the 
knowledge of the world and the ways of man, is many, many 
years behind those he implicates — a person who, from his rant 
in this House, seems to have got his head as full of British con- 
tracts and British modes of corruption as ever Don Quixote's 
was supposed to have been of chivalry, enchantments and 
knight errantry — a person who seems to think no man can be 
honest and independent unless he has inherited land and 



450 MATTHEW LYON 

negroes, nor is he willing to allow a man to vote in the people's 
elections unless he is a landholder. 

"I can tell that gentleman I am as far from offering or re- 
ceiving a bribe as he or any other member on this floor; it is a 
charge which no man ever made against me before him, who 
from his insulated situation, unconversant with the world, is 
perhaps as little acquainted with my character as any member 
of this House, or almost any man in the nation, and I do most 
cordially believe that, had my back and my mind been supple 
enough to rise and fall with his motions, I should have escaped 
his censure. 

"I, sir, have none of that pride which sets men above being 
merchants and dealers; the calling of a merchant is, in my 
opinion, equally dignified, and no more than equally dignified 
with that of a farmer, or a manufacturer. I have a great part 
of my life been engaged in all the stations of merchant, farmer 
and manufacturer, in which I have honestly earned and lost a 
great deal of property, in the character of a merchant. I act 
like other merchants, look out for customers with whom I can 
make bargains advantageous to both parties; it is all the same 
to me whether I contract with an individual or the public; I see 
no constitutional impediment to a member of this House serv- 
ing the public for the same reward the public gives another. 
Whenever my constituents or myself think I have contracts in- 
consistent with my duties as a member of this House, I will 
retire from it. 

"I came to this House as a representative of a free, a brave, 
and a generous people. I thank my Creator that He gave me 
the face of a man, not that of an ape or a monkey, and that He 
gave me the heart of a man also, a heart which will spare to its 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 457 

last drop in defence of the dignity of the station my generous 
constituents have placed me in. I shall trouble the House no 
farther at this time, than by observing that I shall not be de- 
terred by the threats of the member from Virginia from giving 
the vote I think the interest and honor of the nation require; 
and by saying if that member means to be understood that I 
have offered contracts from the Postmaster-General, the asser- 
tion or insinuation has no foundation in truth, and I challenge 
him to bring forward his boasted proof."* 

Had Col. Lyon lived long enough, he would not only have 
beheld John Randolph nobly acting on his blunt advice by 
emancipating all his hundreds of slaves, but John G. Whittier, 
the poet of the Abolitionists, chanting songs of praise to his 
philanthropy in the following strain: 

" Bard, Sage and Tribune! — in himself 
All moods of mind contrasting, 
The tenderest wail of human woe, 
The scorn-like lightning blasting; 
The pathos which from rival eyes 
Unwilling tears could summon, 
The stinging taunt, the fiery burst 
Of hatred scarcely human! * 

Mirth sparkling like a diamond shower 
From lips of life-long sadness; 
Clear picturings of majestic thought 
Upon a ground of madness; 
And over all Romance and Song 
A classic beauty throwing, 
And laurelled Clio at his side 
Her storied pages showing. 

All parties feared him; each in turn 

Beheld its schemes disjointed, 

As right or left his fatal glance 

And spectral finger pointed. 

Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down 

With trenchant wit unsparing, 

And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand 

The robe Pretence was wearing. 



o" Annals of Eighth Congress" (1804-5), PP- II25-II26. 



458 MATTHEW LYON 

He held his slaves; yet kept the while 
His reverence for the Human; 
In the dark vassals of his will 
He saw but Man and Woman! 
No hunter of God's outraged poor 
His Roanoke valley entered; 
No trader in the souls of men 
Across his threshold ventured. 

And when the old and wearied man 
Lay down for his last sleeping, 
And at his side, a slave no more, 
His brother-man stood weeping, 
His latest thought, his latest breath, 
To Freedom's duty giving, 
With failing tongue and trembling hand 
The dying blest the living." 

The above speech of Lyon is much stronger than the apoc- 
ryphal one attributed at a later date to Tristam Burgess. I 
have searched the records carefully and find no such speech 
there, and do not believe any such was ever made in Congress 
as that ascribed to Tristam Burgess against John Randolph. 
Mr. Burgess was addicted to making up or padding remarks 
which took five minutes to utter in Congress into long printed 
pamphlets in Rhode Island, which would have taken hours to 
deliver in the House. He was charged with this by George Mc- 
Duffie on the floor of the House, and an appeal to the record of 
debates confirmed the charge. Randolph's alleged reply to 
Burgess is, of course, purely fictitious. But Matthew Lyon's 
retort and Randolph's attack which provoked it were made and 
are in the Annals of Congress, and created great excitement at 
Washington when they were delivered. Lemuel Sawyer, a 
member of Congress at the time, relates an amusing anecdote 
in his " Biography of John Randolph," which I subjoin: 

"Upon the eve of adjournment, he (Randolph) went up to 
Mr. Quincy to take his farewell. * * * In passing out of the 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 459 

Hall with his friend Garnett he encountered near the door a 
Lyon (Matthew, of Kentucky), and offered him his hand. 
Mr. Lyon drew back, and observed that he could not find it 
in his heart to shake hands with Mr. Randolph, because he had 

called him 'a d d old rascal.' Mr. Randolph appealed to 

Mr. Garnett, who confirmed Mr. Lyon's statement, and Mr. 
Randolph replying, 'it can't be helped,' departed without ex- 
changing the farewell with him."" 

The situation of affairs, with the world given over to two 
freebooters, England and France, had now become des- 
perate. The Orders in Council and the Berlin Decree had made 
the United States on the ocean the plaything of Napoleon and 
the Mephistophelian Canning. John Randolph was in revolt, 
and Lyon could have been leader of the House, if the words 
of Jefferson in a letter, February 28, 1807, to Wilson Cary 
Nicholas, had not been exactly true. "There is no one whose 
talents and standing, taken together, have weight enough to 
give him the lead."* There is not a doubt Lyon's "talents" 
were ample, but owing to himself his "standing" was more than 
doubtful. Like Henry Clay, he had become a disciple of the 
protective doctrines of Matthew Carey, doctrines which Jeffer- 
son called heretical to the end of his life. Indeed, nearly a 
quarter of a century before, in the year 1785, Col. Lyon sowed 
the germs of high tariffs in the Assembly of Vermont. I quote 
from its Journal: "Duty on Nails proposed and dismissed. 
In Assembly, October 17 (1785). A petition signed by Mat- 
thew Lyon, praying that a duty of two pence pr. pound might 
be laid on all nails brought into this State, which would be a 

« " A Biography of John Randolph of Roanoke," by Lemuel Sawyer, 
New York, 1844, p. 47. 

»»" Jefferson's Works," V, 48. 



460 MATTHEW LYON 

sufficient encouragement for him to build a slitting mill, was 
read and dismissed."" And the following comment on this 
proposal is made by the observant editor of the Historical So- 
ciety Collections of the same State: "Lyon, on another occa- 
sion asked for the exclusive right, for the term of eighteen 
years, of splitting bar-iron into nail-rods, which was not 
granted. Here are germs of the protective policy afterwards 
adopted by Congress in tarififs and patent laws."'' Lyon had 
been encouraged by the passage in the Assembly, four days 
earlier, of an act authorizing the State, on his petition, to sell 
to him broken cannon, mortars, etc., at Mount Independence, 
to be used in making bar-iron, to come forward with the hap- 
pily ineffectual prayer to lay a duty on nails. There were Jeffer- 
sonian Democrats in the Vermont Assembly, even in those 
primitive days. Jefiferson was at a loss to account for Henry 
Clay's hostility to himself in 1807. Clay, before this time, 
thought Jefferson a persecutor, an opinion into which he had 
been duped by Aaron Burr, and which deception he afterwards 
resented by refusing Burr his hand when they met in New 
York. But apart from this, Harry of the West was already so 
enamored by Mathew Carey's paternalism in government that 
in 1807 he offered resolutions in the United States Senate 
which were adopted, calling on the Secretary of the Treasury 
" to prepare and report to the Senate at their next session, a 
plan for the application of such means as are within the power 
of Congress, to the purposes of opening roads and making 
canals; together with a statement of undertakings of that 
nature which, as objects of public improvement, may require and 

a " Vermont Assembly Journal," II, 519. 

6 " Collections of the Vermont Historical Society," II. pp. 428-429. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 461 

deserve the aid of government."" Mathew Carey, in his "New 
OHve Branch," and "Essays on Political Economy," and his 
son, Henry C. Carey, in his "Principles of Political Economy," 
have made Pennsylvania the hotbed of the protective system 
in the United States. Henry Clay, in spite of many opinions to 
the contrary, was always from his first appearance in national 
politics in 1806, an ardent disciple of Mathew Carey. And it 
must be confessed that Matthew Lyon, in view of his high 
tariff utterances in Congress during 1807, and the succeeding 
two years, was still strongly tinctured on that subject with 
what Mr. Jefferson always styled political heresy. One of 
Jefferson's latest letters, that to William B. Giles, December 
2^, 18125, was called forth by Henry Clay's schemes of pater- 
nalism when Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams. 

"I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction," exclaimed 
the venerable patriot, "the rapid strides with which the Federal 
branch of our Government is advancing towards the usurpa- 
tion of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolida- 
tion in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic ; and that, too, 
by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their 
power. Take together the decisions of the Federal Court, the 
doctrines of the President and the misconstructions of the con- 
stitutional compact acted on by the Legislature of the Federal 
branch, and it is but too evident that the three ruling branches 
of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, 
the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to 
exercise themselves all functions, foreign and domestic. Under 
the power to regulate commerce they assume indefinitely that 
also over agriculture and manufactures, and call it regulation 
""Annals of Congress" (1806-7). 



462 MATTHEW LYON 

to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry, and 
that, too, the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of 
the other, the most flourishing of all. And what is our re- 
source for the preservation of the Constitution? Reason and 
argument? You might as well reason and argue with the 
marble columns encircling them. * * * They now look 
to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded 
on banking institutions and moneyed incorporations under 
the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, 
commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered 
ploughman and beggared yeomanry."" 

Here then the reader has the explanation of Henry Qay's 
course in the Senate in 1806 and 1807, of open hostility to Mr. 
Jefferson. Burr had poisoned his mind. The President was 
aware of his enmity, but confessed his total ignorance of the 
cause of it in a letter to Mr. Cooper, written at Monticello, 
September i, 1807. In this letter he says: " It is true, as you 
have heard, that a distance has taken place between Mr. Clay 
and myself. The cause I never could learn or imagine. I 
had always known him to be an able man, and I believed him 
an honest one. I had looked to his coming into Congress with 
an entire belief that he would be cordial with the administra- 
tion, and even before that I had always had him in my mind 
for a high and important vacancy which had been from time to 
time expected, but is only now about to take place. I feel his 
loss, therefore, with real concern, but it is irremediable from 
the necessity of harmony and cordiality between those who are 
to manage together the public concerns. Not only his with- 
drawing from the usual civilities of intercourse with me (which 

«^' Works of Jeflferson," Vol. VII, p. 426 et seq. 



THJi HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 463 

even the Federalists, with two or three exceptions, keep up), 
but his open hostiHty in Congress to the administration leave 
no doubt of the state of his mind as a fact, although the cause 
be unknown."" 

Andrew Jackson had also been seduced into antagonism to 
Jefferson by the maleficent Burr, and went to Richmond, at 
the time of Burr's trial, according to old Mr. W. H. Sparks in 
his " Memories of Fifty Years," an unreliable book, where he 
roundly abused the President. Sparks says: " When on his 
(Burr's) trial at Richmond, Jackson went there, and was found 
on the street haranguing the people in Burr's favor, and de- 
nouncing the prosecution and the President. Subsequently, 
however, he denounced Burr, and pretended that he had de- 
ceived him."** But little reliance can be placed on the garrul- 
ous Sparks, who wrote his book in old age when his memory 
had faded. Randall, however, has a reference to Jackson's hos- 
tility at this time. But it is probable that Matthew Lyon 
warned Jackson against Burr, and opened his eyes to his real 
character. 

In the light of Lyon's deposition in the Wilkinson investi- 
gation before a congressional committee in 1811, the depon- 
ent's relations with Burr are revealed, and show a set purpose 
on Burr's part to reach Jackson through Lyon. In reality 
Burr could not have felt any friendship for Lyon, for he had 
tried in vain to corrupt him through Brown of Rhode Island 
in 1 80 1 in the contest for President between JeflFerson and 
Burr. Lyon, above all others, had been instrumental in Burr's 
defeat. Hamilton, next to Lyon, had worked hardest for that 

*" Jefferson's Works," V, 183. 
«»?. 200. 



464 MATTHEW LYON 

object. Burr's feelings were probably very bitter against both. 
Lyon testified that Burr asked him in 1805 to solicit Jefferson 
to appoint him to a foreign embassy, and that he bluntly re- 
fused to make such a request. He next expressed a wish to 
accompany Lyon by boat from Pittsburgh to Kentucky. 
Lyon's boat was to start on a certain day; Burr's boat would 
not be ready to start for a day or two later. " Colonel 
Burr arrived at Pittsburgh," Lyon deposed, " the evening be- 
fore I left that place. He assured me General Wilkinson 
wDuld be on in a day or two, and begged of me to wait their 
company. I gave him to understand that my business would 
not admit of my waiting one moment for the company of any 
ceremonious gentleman. In all the journies of my long life 
I had not waited half an hour for the company of any man."" 
Lyon was evidently not taken by the proposal. Thirty-six 
hours after his departure, " by extraordinary exertions of his 
hands," Burr overtook him. " We lashed together," says 
Lyon, "to Marietta; he stopped at Blennerhassett's." At 
Washington Wilkinson also had solicited Lyon's aid for Burr, 
and while Lyon refused to interest himself for him with Presi- 
dent Jefferson, he had suggested that by going early to Ten- 
nessee Burr might be returned from there to Congress. In 
his deposition Lyon states that Burr did not appear to take 
more than a languid interest in this suggestion. His schemes 
in the East kept him at Philadelphia, and Lyon assured Wil- 
kinson that this delay had destroyed any chance for election 
which Burr might have had by a prompt departure for Nash- 
ville. Whatever his motive, Burr seemed determined to stick 

• " Memoirs of My Own Times," by General James Wilkinson, Ap- 
pendix, No. LXVIII. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 465 

to Lyon. "At the falls of Ohio," I again quote from the dep- 
osition, "where I had considerable business, he overtook me; 
there I repeated to him that the delay he had made had ruined 
his prospects of election, as that prospect depended solely on 
domestication. At the falls he changed his flat boat for a small 
boat, which he ordered to Eddyville (where I live), and rode to 
Nashville." He was received by the leading people at Nash- 
ville, including General Jackson, with great eclat, but soon re- 
turned to Colonel Lyon's house at Eddyville. " I inquired if 
anything had been said about the election," continues the depo- 
sition. " He answered, ' not one word.' I observed that he 
ought to think no more of it. In answer, he said he had little 
doubt of being elected a delegate from Orleans Territory, but 
he would choose to be a member, and insisted that I should 
write to a friend of mine (who had paid him the most marked 
attention) to see if the thing could be yet set on foot, and to 
inform him he would be a resident in Tennessee. At the time 
of the election he requested me to communicate the answer to 
him at Natchez. I complied with his wishes, the answer I 
received being unfavorable to him." Hildreth says that Lyon's 
friend, to whom Burr urged him to write, was " probably Jack- 
son."'' About the same time, in reply to a letter of Wilkinson, 

Lyon wrote, " B lost the prospect in Tennessee, by not 

pursuing the road I pointed out for him." The last question 
propounded by the committee respecting Burr, and Lyon's 
answer, were as follows: " Did you not believe him sincere? 
In answer to which I say, no doubt he would have been sin- 
cerely rejoiced to have been elected. There seemed too much 
mystery in his conduct. I suspected him to have other objects 
« Hildreth's " History of the United States," 2d series, II, 597. 



466 MATTHEW LYON 

in view, to which I could not penetrate. These objects I then 
believed were known to General Wilkinson ; but I had no idea, 
at that time, of his having any treasonable project in his head."* 
It was not long before Lyon became satisfied that both Burr 
and Wilkinson required watching, and from his speeches in 
Congress it is evident that his friendship for Wilkinson, a fellow 
soldier in the Revolution, was at an end, and that he deemed 
Burr, to whom he had refused to be introduced in 1801, with 
his mysterious projects, dangerous, sinister and probably bent 
on treason. Entertaining these views it is not difficult to im- 
agine what Colonel Lyon must have said to his neighbor and 
cherished friend Andrew Jackson. Apart from some account 
which Mrs. Roe, Colonel Lyon's daughter, communicated to 
me, but which being the recollections of a very old lady cannot 
be deemed historical proof, the internal evidence makes it ex- 
tremely probable that Lyon warned Jackson to be on his guard 
with Burr, and as Lyon was in confidential relations with Jef- 
ferson and Gallatin, it is likely that the secret knowledge which 
Jackson obtained about this period of Burr's and Wilkinson's 
schemes was confided to his ears by Matthew Lyon, Jackson 
changed abruptly. He had allowed his nephew to go into 
service with Burr, which showed he then trusted him, but he 
soon sent off express a confidential letter to Governor Clai- 
borne putting him on his guard against Wilkinson, and more 
than hinting that the government was threatened by a secret 
plot. " I fear," said he, " there is something rotten in the state 
of Denmark." It is my opinion that Lyon, who was in a posi- 
tion to learn administration secrets, opened the eyes of General 
Jackson to the existence of a dangerous conspiracy. Mr. 
Wilkinson's Memoirs, Appendix No. LXVIII. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 467 

JeflFerson, who trusted Wilkinson, though Lyon had ceased to 
do so, wrote to Governor Claiborne, January 3,-1807, "Be 
assured that Tennessee, and particularly General Jackson, are 
faithful."^ In a former chapter of this volume I called atten- 
tion to a scurrilous article by Peter Porcupine, in 1797, holding 
up to public ridicule JeflFerson, Jackson, Monroe, Gallatin and 
Lyon. It is a curious coincidence that Lyon's relations to all 
of those distinguished Democrats continued to the end most 
intimate and loyal. If he baffled Burr in his treasonable mach- 
inations, and revealed to Jackson the true character of the man, 
it was the most important service he had rendered to his coun- 
try since he gave Jefferson the ninth and decisive vote in 1801. 

Colonel Lyon's early associations with New England men 
were revived considerably during his latter days in Congress. 
He opposed the embargo and made several strong speeches 
against it. This brought him into sympathy with the distin- 
guished Josiah ^uincy, between whom and himself a cordial 
friendship sprung up in Congress, which continued throughout 
the remainder of Colonel Lyon's life. But when Quincy 
threatened the secession of Massachusetts from the Union, 
Lyon, then in Kentucky, wrote him earnestly to frown upon 
that mad scheme, and made one of the most pathetic and elo- 
quent appeals he ever uttered to the patriotism of Massachu- 
setts. He said : " The step I most dread and have ever 
dreaded seems ready to be taken ; I mean the separation of the 
States, and that through the folly of the National Government. 
* * * Yet I still hope that New England will act worthy 
of themselves. * * * Permit me, my dear sir, once more 
to remind you of the importance of preserving the Union ta 

* Randall's Life of Jefferson, III, 186. 



468 MATTHEW LYON 

the last extremity. Besides tlie reasons commonly urg.:d and 
well enforced by Mr. Dexter, your dextrous Democratic can- 
didate, the New England people ought to consider their very 
limited boundary, the extensive, vacant world west of them, 
to a share of which they are entitled; the importance of keeping 
open the roads through which their vast surplus population 
can emigrate into other parts of the same Nation, carrying with 
them their steady habits, their industry and their ingenuity, to 
which every other people pay deference and give place. My 
good friend, I frequently hear from you. I observe your ef- 
forts to restore our Nation to its usual state of health and 
peace with pleasure. I read with indignation the foolish rav- 
ings of those who hate you because they know you not." 

Colonel Lyon's most serious mistake as a public man was 
his opposition to the war of 1812, It probably lost him his 
seat in Congress. Having been thrown out of alignment with 
his party upon the policy of an embargo and non-intercourse, 
he drifted by easy gradation into opposition upon the subject 
of war. But his opposition was not factious. At best it was 
a temporary aberration from his usual clear-sighted, practical 
judgment upon questions of public policy. He did not sulk 
in his tent, but built gunboats for the war at his shipyards and, 
being too old himself to go, sent his sons to the field to do 
battle for their country. A few years after his vision cleared, 
and he frankly admitted in a letter to President Monroe June 
7, 1817, that he had undergone a change of mind. " What- 
ever," said he, " I might have thought of the untimeliness of 
the late war, I now consider it the most fortunate war for the 
world that mankind ever experienced, as had it not been for 
the lesson that war has taught Europeans, there would prob- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 469 

ably, before this time, have been on foot a crusade of the old 
world for the destruction of the liberties of the new world, 
which might have been attended with the most disastrous 
consequences." 

Colonel Lyon not only acted with the opposition against 
the embargo, but more especially in condemning the right of a 
Congressional Caucus to nominate candidates for President 
and Vice-President. He continued always to be a Democrat, 
yet his attitude on these important questions in the House of 
Representatives cost him his seat at the next election, and for 
the time undermined his popularity in Kentucky; just as his 
old antagonist in many a fierce debate, John Randolph of 
Roanoke, for the same reason was left at home in Virginia. 
Colonel Lyon was among the very first to oppose the prevail- 
ing custom of putting forth candidates for President by a 
Congressional Caucus, and although the custom survived for 
some years longer, it was finally abandoned. His speeches in 
Congress, and his letter in 1822 to Niles's Register, aided pow- 
erfully in educating the public mind to the necessity of reform- 
ing the system and lodging the duty of choosing candidates 
where it rightly belonged, with the people of the several States. 
National nominating conventions, composed of delegates 
chosen by the people on the same basis as they elect represen- 
tatives and senators to Congress, at last superseded the caucus 
system, and vindicated the sagacity of Lyon in his advocacy of 
the change. But his stinging strictures on the nomination of 
Mr. Madison probably contributed in no slight degree to the 
loss of his seat in Congress. It was known that he preferred 
James Monroe to any other man as Mr. Jefferson's successor, 
and even after Mr. Madison was elected, and on the very day 



470 MATTHEW LYON 

before the Senate and House met jointly to count the votes 
and declare the result, Lyon made a strong- anti-embargo 
speech, in which, with characteristic boldness, he attacked the 
hero of the hour as the " Caucus President." 

" We have," he said, " a Constitution which provides for the 
meeting of 142 members in this House and 34 in another to 
consult for the common good and provide for the safety of 
this Nation. We may talk here, here we may vote, here we 
may meet to collect a majority to order the registering of the 
decrees of a sort of Jacobin Club called a caucus, who hold 
their midnight convocations to consult, — not the good or the 
safety of the Nation, no ; that could be best done here — no, sir, 
it is to consult what can be done to save the party, not the 
Old Republican of 1798; no, that party is broken down. I 
don't hear that yourself (Mr. Macon) and many others of that 
Old Republican party meet in those caucuses, those nightly 
meetings. It is, it seems, the Embargo party who meet in 
the Senate rooms under pretense of consulting and devising 
means for the national benefit, yet in their discussions they can- 
not avoid dwelling upon the dangerous situation of their party. 
It was in the great or little caucuses that this war-whoop com- 
menced; it was there discussed and recommended as a party- 
saving measure. It seems that we are in future to look for 
all national measures to be first canvassed in those midnight 
meetings by those self-created caucus gentry. It seems that 
«very measure proposed for national benefit, however applica- 
ble to the state of this Nation, is to be scouted out of this 
House at the first glance, merely because it is not the child of 
this caucus ; our work is thus to be laid out for us in the mid- 
night caucuses, and we are to be called upon to be present 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 47I 

while these measures receive a vote of sanction in this House, 
which is in future to act the part of Bonaparte's mock Parha- 
ment. We are to meet to-morrow here to attend the register- 
ing of the election of a caucus President; we are to have a 
caucus army, I understand, a caucus non-intercourse, a caucus 
loan of ten millions, equal to the whole capital of the Bank 
of the United States. And all this not to save the Nation, 
but the Embargo party."" 

Colonel Lyon was so busily engaged in superintending the 
building of a fine vessel at his shipyards in Eddyville about 
the beginning of the war of 1812, and loading it with a valu- 
able cargo, that he neglected his political interests, and this, in 
connection with his waning popularity, lost him the election 
for the Twelfth Congress. His vessel was wrecked on the 
Mississippi during the trip to New Orleans, and together with 
the greater part of the valuable cargo was lost. His wealth 
had already been impaired by the first embargo, and this last 
stroke of adverse fortune reduced him from affluence to com- 
parative poverty. His son Chittenden assumed his liabilities, 
as before stated, to the amount of twenty-eight thousand dol- 
lars, and with his other sons, who were all prosperous, came 
to a beloved father's assistance. But Colonel Lyon was a 
proud man, and his unbroken spirit chafed under the restraints 
of dependence, even upon those whose delight it was to ren- 
der to him the offices of love and duty. 

For the first time in his life he turned to his old political 
associates at Washington in quest of official preferment. He 
■wrote in 181 8 to Senator Armisted C. Mason of Virginia, the 
son of that devoted friend in the dark days of 1798, Gen. 



•Annals loth Congress, February 7, 1809, pp. 1420-1422. 



47^' MATTHEW LYON" 

Stevens Thompson Mason, and to another staunch friend, the 
celebrated Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, and soon 
learned from each of those gentlemen that they had brought 
his application to the notice of President Monroe, who ex- 
pressed much sympathy and respect for Colonel Lyon, and 
an intention to appoint him to a good office. 

In 1820 the President appointed him United. States Factor 
to the Cherokee Nation in the Territory of Arkansas, and the 
old statesman immediately set out for the then frontier regions 
of the Union west of the Mississippi. The same indomitable 
spirit which blazed a path through the primeval forests of 
Vermont and Kentucky was not yet quenched, and soon Spadra 
Bluflf, his new home on the Arkansas river, about 140 miles 
above Arkansas City, felt the impulse of that energy and enter- 
prise which the founder of the towns of Fair Haven and Eddy- 
ville had displayed everywhere during his long and eventful 
life. The people of Arkansas elected Colonel Lyon as their 
second delegate to the Congress of the United States, a fur- 
ther proof of his magnetic character in every situation of life. 

But he did not live to take his seat. His astonishing activity 
was as marked now as at any period of his life, and he seemed 
to forget that there were any limits upon his vital resources. 
He performed a journey shortly before his death which the 
hardy people among whom he resided long talked of with 
astonishment as truly extraordinary. The Arkansas Gazette, 
in the month of May, 1822, published an account of this jour- 
ney, and Niles's Register for June 29, 1822, copied it as a 
memorable performance. At the beginning of that year Col- 
onel Lyon built a flat boat at Spadra Bluff and loaded it with 
furs, peltries and Indian commodities, and on the 14th of Feb- 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 473 

ruary launched it on the Arkansas river, bound under his own 
charge to New Orleans. Tlie long trip was successfully made, 
and his collection of furs, peltries and Indian commodities was 
exchanged at New Orleans for factory supplies, storekeepers' 
goods, various utensils for the Cherokees, iron ware, such as 
he used to turn out at his Fair Haven forge and Eddyville 
foundry, and the machinery for a gigantic cotton gin which 
he was erecting, the largest one up to that period ever seen in 
Arkansas. The return passage was begun in the roughest 
weather of an inclement season, but it did not chill the fires 
of the old pioneer, for on the way back, like another Daniel 
Boone, he longed to thread once more the Kentucky forests, 
and after ascending the Mississippi to the mouth of White 
river, he there stored his cargo and set out for a flying visit 
to his old hearthstone and friends at beloved Eddyville. He 
soon returned, having gone through a journey within three 
months, in his seventy-third year, of over three thousand miles. 
All this was accomplished in wintry weather and against cur- 
rents so adverse that oftentimes on his trip down the river 
from Arkansas his boat ran aground, when he was the first 
to jump into the water "to shove her oiif; " and again in 
ascending the stream on his return to Spadra Bluff he guided 
the hands while they dragged along the grounded boat, and 
always insisted upon doing his share in " rowing, steering or 
cordelling." The editor of the Arkansas Gazette saw Colonel 
Lyon as he ascended the river, and could not discover that the 
long journey had, in the least, aflFected his health. But he 
was mistaken. " This," says Wharton, " was the last time he 
was to drop down the current of the Mississippi, or visit, by 
way of an interlude, his second home in Kentucky, for robust 



474 MATTHEW LYON 

as he was, the chill of old age was at hand, and, like the night 
of northern climates, was destined to drop upon him without 
the notice of an intermediate twilight." 

Among the family records piously preserved after his death 
by his bereaved widow and children at his old home in Eddy- 
ville, the account was kept of Colonel Lyon's last illness and 
death at far off Spadra Bluff. An old and faithful retainer, 
George Skinner, like another Scottish seneschal, not only 
served him in Vermont, and went with him to Kentucky, but 
with a devotion that never relaxed, followed him across the 
Mississippi to the distant nation of the Cherokees. Skinner 
related with what precision his master, when his sickness be- 
gan, ordered every detail, the hours for medicine, the adjust- 
ment of business, his farewell messages to loved ones, and then 
occurred his placid death like an infant falling asleep. Scenes 
of childhood seemed to flit before him, as is often the case with 
the old. Again he wandered through the Vale of Avoca, in 
his native Wicklow, and perhaps thought of Moore's famous 
lines, 

" Sweet Vale of Avoca how calm could I rest 
In thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best, 
Where the sorrows we feel in this cold world shall cease. 
And our hearts like thy waters be mingled in peace." 

Matthew Lyon died at Spadra Bluflf on the ist of August, 
1822, lamented by the whole American people; a man of action 
and deeds which left their impress on his times; a patriot in 
every fibre, whose vote made a President; a pioneer along 
whose pathway Romance walked side by side with History; a 
hero whose memory is cherished in Kentucky and Vermont 
among the foremost and bravest of their sons. 



THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 475 

The remains of Matthew Lyon were interred at Spadra Bluff, 
but in the year 1833 ^is son Chittenden Lyon and other mem- 
bers of Col. Lyon's family resolved to transfer the body to Ken- 
tucky, and re-inter it at Eddyville. This was accordingly done, 
and the ceremonies of the reburial drew together an immense 
assemblage of the friends of Matthew Lyon. A handsome 
monument was erected over the grave, with suitable inscrip- 
tions commemorative of the founder of Eddyville. Old men 
still living remember the impressive services, and speak of the 
bringing home of "bell and burial" for the beloved founder, as 
the most solemn event in the history of the town. 



APPENDIX. 



WHAT WAS COLONEL LYON'S CHURCH? 

While collecting materials for this biography I addressed 
inquiries to the descendants of Matthew Lyon in regard to 
his religious faith. A remark in his letter to John Adams, " It 
is a maxim with the lawyers and popish priests, I believe, that 
the greater the villainy to be exculpated from, the greater the 
fee," had led me to suppose that he was not a Catholic. 
Another remark by Colonel Lyon, March 27, 1810, during a 
speech he made in the House in opposition to the embargo 
and non-intercourse as useless self-punishment, served still 
more t6 strengthen the impression that he was no Catholic. 
That remark was as follows : " They would not believe us 
when we told them the attribute or thing they called virtue 
was mere monkish self-flagellation and debasement." 

But occasionally letters came to hand which left the ques- 
tion in doubt as to his real religious convictions. In Con- 
necticut and Vermont Lyon had been thrown exclusively from 
his fifteenth year into the society of Puritans and other non- 
Catholics. In Kentucky he found a flourishing Catholic 
colony, the history of which has been admirably sketched by 
the late Archbishop Martin John Spalding, Associations and 
environment often have much to do with the state of religious 
opinion. Lyon formed an intimate acquaintance and friend- 
ship with Father Abell and Father Durbin, well-known priests, 



4/8 APPENDIX 

of Kentucky. A great-granddaughter of his, in a letter now 
before me, says : " Have you met our cousin the Catholic 

priest, or do you know anything of the Hennessy aflfair at 

Lyon's Iron Works in Vermont in 1796? " Mr. L. E. Chit- 
tenden, great-grandson of Governor Thomas Chittenden of 
-Vermont, and Register of the Treasury under Abraham Lin- 
coln, wrote, February 3d, 1881, in relation to Matthew Lyon: 
" I do not think he adhered to any religious creed whatever, 
not even that of his CathoHc ancestry." April 4th, 1881, ex- 
Senator W. B. Machen, who married Lyon's granddaughter, 
wrote: "He was probably Catholic in his faith, but no re- 
ligionist in his practice. His wife was a Methodist." Mr. 
Thompson A. Lyon, July 21st, 1881, said as follows: "You 
wrote me sometime ago to know something as to the religious 
belief of grandfather. From an anecdote I heard of him to- 
day I am inclined to think he was a Catholic, as he was 
frequently visited by Father Abell of Washington county, who 
was in that day a prominent priest in this State." Another 
descendant, Mrs. Mary Shelby Wyatt, of Fredonia, Kentucky, 
April 17, 1899, wrote as follows: "There is one point I wish 
you would hunt up about our great-grandfather, — was he a 
Catholic or Protestant? My mother told me one of her earliest 
recollections was of hearing old Father Durbin celebrate mass 
in her father's house. This would seem to indicate the family 
were Catholic." Miss Fannie M. Hepburn, another de- 
scendant, December 6th, 1899, said: " In reply to your inquiry 
as to the religious faith of my great-grandfather, Col. Matthew 
Lyon, I regret that I cannot give you any satisfactory informa- 
tion. I know that he was not a member of any church, and 
II believe there is no record of his ever having made a pro- 



APPENDIX 479 

fession of religious faith." After diligent inquiry, the above 
meagre information is all I have been able to obtain in rela- 
tion to Colonel Lyon's religious opinions. 

lyon's testimony before a congressional committee 
appointed to inquire into the conduct of general 
james wilkinson. 

" COLONEL M. lyon's DEPOSITION. 

Questions proposed to the honorable Mr. Lyon, by General 
Wilkinson. 

Have you any knowledge of Colonel Burr's intention to 
offer himself as a candidate to Congress for the State of 
Tennessee, before you left this city in the spring, 1805; if so, 
will you be pleased to state the particulars? 

Did not Colonel Burr cross the mountains that spring, de- 
scend the Ohio, and proceed to Nashville, in Tennessee, with 
the professed intention to canvass for the proposed election 
to Congress, and did you not believe him sincere? 

Did you see or converse with Colonel Burr, after he reached 
the western country, concerning his election to Congress, from 
the State of Tennessee? 

Did you not, in a letter to General Wilkinson, dated Novem- 
ber 19, 1805, make allusion to the said election of Burr, in the 
following terms: " B. . . . lost the prospect in Tennessee, by 
not pursuing the road I pointed out for him?" 

To the honourable committee of the House of Representatives of 
the United States. 

The undersigned, in answering the questions, proposed by 
General Wilkinson, and handed him by the chairman of the 



4So APPENDIX 

committee, considers himself bound to explain the state of his 
acquaintance, with both General Wilkinson and Colonel Burr. 

With General Wilkinson, I have had acquaintance, since the 
retreat of the army from Ticonderoga, in 1777. His conduct 
during that memorable campaign, which ended with the cap- 
ture of Burgoyne, and his army, endeared him to me: he 
seemed to be the life and soul of the headquarters of the army : 
he, in the capacity of Adjutant-General, governed at head 
quarters. He was a standing correction of the follies and 
irregularities, occasioned by the weakness and intemperance 
of the commanding general. This regard for General Wilkin- 
son, followed him through the various stages of his public 
life. 

I was, in the time of Adams's administration, distressed, for 
fear he was entangled with that party : from this anxiety, I was 
measurably relieved by the General's conduct on the change 
of the administration. In an interview at my house, in Ken- 
tucky, in the spring or summer, 1802 or 3, he explained and 
elucidated his conduct, on that point, to my satisfaction; of 
course, when I came to Congress from Kentucky, in 1803, 
I was friendly disposed towards him, and when we met, we did 
not fail to express our reciprocal affection. I was so much the 
General's friend, that on his appointment as Governor of Louis- 
iana, I recommended him in my circular letter, of which I 
sent many copies to my friends in that territory. 

Some time in the winter, 1805, coming one morning from 
Alexandria, by way of the navy yard, and passing by the house 
where the General lived, he called on me to come in; after 
congratulating him on his appointment as Governor, and some 
other conversation, Colonel Burr's name was mentioned. 



APPENDIX 4gl 

Colonel Burr had no claim to friendly attentions from me. 
I had no acquaintance with him before the contest concerning 
the presidential election. I had resisted the solicitations of my 
friends, who wished to introduce me to him in March, 1801, 
on account of his misconduct in that affair; yet when I saw 
him persecuted for what I considered no more than fair play 
among duellists, I advocated him; this brought about an 
acquaintance, by no means intimate. In the course of the 
conversation between the General and myself, we regretted 
the loss of so much talent as Colonel Burr possessed; we 
viewed him on the brink of a precipice, from which, in a few 
days, he must fall; from the second station in the nation, he 
must fall to that of a private citizen. 

The General entered warmly into his praise, and talked of 
a foreign embassy for him. This I assured him, could not be 
obtained. The General then asked me, if I could not think of 
something, which would do for the little counsellor? I replied, 
that he might very readily become a member of the congress, 
which were to meet the coming winter, and in the present 
state of parties, considering the eclat with which he was likely 
to leave the senate, he might very probably be speaker. The 
General was eager to know how he could be elected to con- 
gress. I explained; let Colonel Burr mount his horse the 
fourth of March, and ride through Virginia to Tennessee, 
giving out that he intends settling at Nashville, in the practice 
of the law. Let him commence the practice, and fix himself 
a home there; his rencounter with General Hamilton, will not 
injure him. Let him attend the courts in that district. Let 
him in July next, intimate to some of the numerous friends 
(his pre-eminent talents and suavity of manners will have made 



482 



APPENDIX 



for him) that he would wilHngly serve the district in congress ; 
they will set the thing on foot, and he is sure to be elected; 
there is no constitutional bar in the way. As I finished this 
explanation, the General rose, and in a seeming ecstasy clapped 
his hands on my shoulders, exclaiming with an oath, this will 
do, it is a heavenly thought, worthy of him who thought it. 
He rang the bell, ordered his boots, and said he would go 
instantly to inform the little counsellor, and would call on me 
in the House in the course of two or three hours; he did so, 
and informed me he had, at Col. Burr's request, made an ap- 
pointment for me to call on him. I was punctual. Col. Burr 
lived at Mr. Wheaton's, near the north side of Pennsylvania 
avenue, not far from Rhodes's. It was in the evening. I 
knocked, or pulled the bell, several times, before a servant 
came, who informed me that Col. Burr was not to be seen, 
he was engaged with company. I gave the servant my name, 
and directed him to go and tell Col. Burr, that I had called. 
Col. Burr came, and invited me up stairs, and requested me 
to sit with Mrs. Wheaton half an hour, when he would be 
with me. In about three quarters of an hour he came, and 
apologised for his delay. I observed to him, that he had a 
large company, among whom I had recognized the voices of 
Generals Wilkinson^ and Dayton, although I had not heard of 
the latter gentleman's being in town; I hoped he had not 
hurried himself from them on account of seeing me; that I 
had been well entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton, and 
would have been so an hour or two longer, if he wished to 
remain with his company. Colonel Burr said the meeting was 



oGeneral Wilkinson was then engaged with Burr and Dayton, on 
the subject of the Canal, proposed to be cut at the Rapids of the Ohio. 



, APPENDIX 483 

about some land concern, in the western country, and they 
had gone as far as they could with it at that time; my coming- 
had been no interruption; he was very glad to see me, and 
soon commenced on the subject of the coming election in Ten- 
nessee. I repeated what I had said to General Wilkinson. He 
admitted the probability of success in the course I pointed out ; 
but did not seem to be so much enamoured with the project as 
General Wilkinson. He said, he was obliged on the fourth 
of March, to go to Philadelphia, from thence he would go to 
Pittsburgh, and thence to the western country by water. I 
offered him a passage in my boat from Pittsburgh, if he should 
be there when I should have done my business on the Monon- 
gahela, and descended to Pittsburgh. I assured him, however, 
all chance of obtaining the election in Tennessee, would be 
jeopardised, if not lost, by such a delay. He told me he had 
ordered a boat prepared for him at Pittsburgh ; and he talked as 
if his business in Philadelphia was indispensable, as well as his 
voyage down the Ohio. In stating this conversation, I give 
the substance of all the other conversations I had that winter, 
with Col. Burr at Washington, except that in some of them, 
the embassy was talked of. He observed that my friend Wil- 
kinson, thought I would be a proper person, in a blunt way, 
to mention it to the President. He asked me, if I dared to tell 
the President that he ought to send Col. Burr, on the foreign 
embassy talked of? I told him very bluntly, I would not. 

Colonel Burr arrived at Pittsburgh, the evening before I left 
that place. He assured me. General Wilkinson would be on 
in a day or two, and begged of me to wait their company. I 
gave him to understand, that my business would not admit of 
my waiting one moment for the company of any ceremonious 



484 APPENDIX 

gentleman. In all the journeys of my long life, I had not 
waited half an hour for the company of any man. 

By extraordinary exertions of his hands, (his boat being light, 
and mine being heavy loaded and frequently aground) Colonel 
Burr overtook me in about thirty-six hours after I left Pitts- 
burgh, and we lashed together to Marietta: he stopped at Blen- 
nerhassett's. At the falls of Ohio, where I had considerable 
business, he overtook me; there I repeated to him that the 
delay he had made, had ruined his prospect of election, as that 
prospect depended solely on domestication. At the falls, he 
changed his flat boat, for a small boat, which he ordered to 
Eddyville, (where I live) and rode to Nashville. The news- 
papers described his arrival and reception there, as one of the 
most magnificent parades that ever had been made at that 
place. They contained lists of toasts, and great dinners, given 
in honour of Colonel Burr; every body at and near Nashville, 
seemed to be contending for the honour of having best treated, 
or served Colonel Burr. This I had expected, and when Colo- 
nel Burr called on me, on his way from Nashville, to his boat, 
I inquired if any thing had been said about the election. He 
answered, not one word. I observed, that he ought to think 
no more of it. In answer he said, he had little doubt of being 
elected a delegate from Orleans territory, but he would choose 
to be a member, and insisted, that I should write to a friend 
of mine (who had paid him the most marked attention) to see if 
the thing could be yet set on foot, and to inform him, he would 
be a resident in Tennessee. At the time of the election, he 
requested me to communicate the answer to him at Natchez. I 
complied with his wishes, the answer I received being unfavour- 
able to him. About the same time, in answer to a letter re- 



APPENDIX 485 

ceived from General Wilkinson, I probably wrote the words, 
recited by the General in his question to me. What I had done 
for Colonel Burr, was almost wholly dictated by my friendship 
for the General. That letter of the General's, was preserved by 
accident, among a bundle of uninteresting papers, for four or 
five years; since then it has been here, and is now presented to 
the committee. 

I have now answered all the questions presented me, except 
that couched in the words, " Did you not believe him sincere?" 
In answer to which I say, no doubt he would have been sin- 
cerely rejoiced to have been elected. There seemed too much 
mystery in his conduct. I suspected him to have other objects 
in view, to which I could not penetrate. These objects, I then 
believed, were known to General Wilkinson; but I had no idea 
at that time, of his having any treasonable project in his head. 
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

M. Lyon. 

[Affirmed to, on the 25th February, 181 1, before E. Bacon, 
Chairman of a Committee, appointed to inquire into the con- 
duct of Brigadier-General James Wilkinson."] 

The following Letter accompanies the above Deposition. 

[" PRIVATE.] 

Massac, June I4ih, 1805. 

Dear Sir. — An opportunity ofTering by Captain Bird, I em- 
brace it to drop you a line of remembrance. 

I have been here since the 4th instant, and should have sent 



486 



APPENDIX 



for you, if I had expected so long a detention, as I wish your 
opinion on several subjects, inconvenient to letter. 

The organizations and appointments of my predecessors, 
with the system of jurisprudence which has been introduced, 
may, I fear, subject me to some unpleasant and unprofitable 
alternatives. In general, it costs much more to undo than to 
do, but I believe it is always better to correct evils, than to 
submit to them. 

I shall reach St. Louis, before the first of next month; shall 
confirm the past by proclamation, and will take time for obser- 
vation and inquiry, before I make a step. From what I have 
seen and heard here, I find opinions of men and things, beyond 
the great river, depend so much on sympathies and antipathies, 
that I can place no confidence in what I do hear. Whom do 
you think best entitled to consideration, merits being equal, 
the voluntary or involuntary vassals of Spain? Will you come 
to see us, and when? I beg you to believe, a visit from you 
will give me pleasure. I shall be obliged to send back some 
boats for stores and provisions, and about twenty-two days 
hence, you may find a passage up from this place to St. Louis, 
Captain Lewis is mounting the Mississippi. He has sent back 
a large boat from his wintering ground, about 1600 miles up 
the Missouri, and by Indian report, was then about 900 miles 
from its source, from whence I expect, he will return in the 
autumn. It is said, Meigs does not accept his appointment; 
in that case, Easton will be the only officer of the government 
with me. The commissioners of land claims, are Mr. Lucas, 
(of congress) Mr. Penrose of Philadelphia, and a Mr. Donald- 
son of Baltimore, recorder; they and the secretary, are all be- 
hind. Colonel Burr left this the loth. I have furloughed D. 



APPENDIX 487 

Bissell, agreeably to my promise to you; he goes by New 

Orleans. 

Farewel, God bless you. 

James Wilkinson." 
Honourable M. Lyon."'* 

MATTHEW LYON TO JOSIAH QUINCY. 

I discovered that very friendly personal relations existed be- 
tween Colonel Lyon and the celebrated Josiah Quincy, and ad- 
dressed a letter to President Quincy 's son and biographer, Mr. 
Edmund Quincy, not knowing of his death. My letter was 
answered by Miss Eliza Susan Quincy, his sister, who I after- 
wards learned had aided her brother materially in writing the 
Life of their distinguished father. Miss Quincy replied as 
follows : 

" WoLLASTON, Mass., May 16, 1881. 

Mr. McLaughlin: 

Your letter of May loth was received by H. P. Quincy, 
M. D., the son of my late brother, Edmund Quincy, and given 
to me to answer. 

My brother Edmund was in his 70th year; he enjoyed his 
health and intellectual vigor to the last, and died of apoplexy, 
on the 17th of May, 1877, deeply regretted by his family and 
friends, by whom he was greatly beloved and valued. I en- 
close a poetical tribute to his memory by his intimate friend, 
J. R. Lowell, our present Minister in England. 

In reply to your request, I enclose two letters of Mr. Lyon's, 
which you need not return. They are very good letters, and 
I shall hope you will send me a copy of your Memoir when it 
is published. If. I find any more of these letters I will send 

"Wilkinson's Memoirs, II. Appendix, No. LXVIII. 



488 APPENDIX 

them, but I believe these are all which exist. Mr. Lyon was 
an occasional, not a regular, correspondent of Mr. Quincy. 

Sincerely yrs., 

Eliza Susan Quincy. 

The letters, kindly presented to me by Miss Quincy, are here 

subjoined: 

" Eddyville, December 13, 1812. 
Hon. JosiAH Quincy. 

My good friend: — By the last mail I received Documents 
under your stamp; this is the only evidence I have had for 
some time that I am remembered by a man I very much 
respect. 

I may tell you that I am very pleased with the part Massa- 
chusetts has acted in the Political Drama before us, her Gov- 
ernor has won my heart; her Assembly have acted like men 
who sincerely loved their country, but the New England States 
are (I see) beaten in the Political race for President. The 
Democratic spirit has carried the Nation far on toward ruin, 
but I cannot, will not despair for this Nation at the foundation 
of which I have labored with as much zeal as a devotee ever 
labored for Heaven or his God. You must not despair. 
Massachusetts must not despair; let me see no disposition in 
her to disunion. She must save the Nation she created; she 
has the greatest power and influence to do so. She is now 
regenerated on the ancient principles of the Revolution, let 
her move majestical toward the main object, the salvation of 
the Nation, and all will be well. Should she move one step 
toward a disssolution of the Government, she loses every 
friend in the western country; she loses her own importance. 



APPENDIX 489 

and her treachery may sink the Nation she has raiseo. Why, 
my dear sir, have you withdrawn from the pubUc stage of ac- 
tion? You cannot say you were poor, or spending your for- 
tune at a rate you could not afford. We are not made to live 
for ourselves; where God and nature have given talents and 
opportunities, the community with which we act and are con- 
nected have a claim on him to whom these talents and oppor- 
tunities are given. You have had much mortification it is 
true, but you have been paid for it in the consolation of the 
men whose opinions are with yours, men whom you know to 
be true patriots. 

I see my old antitype J. Adams is yet noticed. I cut out 
two slips from a newspaper merely to tell you by the inclosure 
of them, that such were my opinions of him and his son many 
years ago. He and I offered for electors, and fared much alike. 
I have always told you that the people of the Western country, 
notwithstanding their strong prejudices in favor of Virginia, 
were docile, but they must be talked to face to face, they must 
be informed, they must be courted. I have not had leisure for 
these things, but the misfortunes that have befallen me in 
consequence of the Embargoes and War have left me at leisure 
to attend to these things, and I will do it. I was invited to be 
a candidate for their delegate in Missouri Territory, and those 
who invited me as well as myself were persuaded I was eligible; 
the people of the Territory were anxious for my service, but a 
group of interested lawyers persuaded them I was ineligible, 
and the thing was given up. I was in that Territory on that 
and other business when the hopeless election was here. It 
is said that my rival Hopkins is dead ; I think this report is not 
true, but he is politically dead, and when opportunity presents, 



490 



APPENDIX 



I will make those exertions the custom of this country requires 
in order to be elected. Give my respects to my friends, and 
assure them I have not forgotten them; they will be a majority 
in the next Congress, and they can check the progress of the 
Nation to ruin. 

I write by this mail to my brother Chittenden, and shall not 
repeat to him what I have said to you. 

With affectionate regard, I am truly your friend, 

M. Lyon." 

SECOND LETTER TO MR. QUINCY. 

" Eddyville, April 6th, 1814. 
Hon. JosiAH Quincy. 

Dear Sir: The step I most dread and have ever dreaded 
seems ready to be taken, I mean the separation of these States, 
and that through the folly and apathy of the National Govern- 
ment, the audacity and ignorant daring insolence of its sup- 
porters on the one part, and the want of patience and forbear- 
ance of the sufTering people of the North and East on the 
other. Those sufferings are great, very great indeed, and such 
in point of magnitude and provocation as no other people with 
equal spirit and understanding would bear, when they could 
throw ofif the burthen with the same convenience; yet I still 
hope that New England will act worthy of themselves. They 
are truly the most enlightened people on earth, they can shift 
better under adverse circumstances, of course bear with priva- 
tions better than any other people on earth, and my daily 
prayer is that they continue their allegiance to the Union until 
God shall turn the hearts of their domestic oppressors, or 
until Providence shall force a peace on our rulers which they 
cannot refuse. 



APPENDIX ^Qj 

I know, my dear Sir, that the gasconading threats of the 
would-be conquerors of Canada cannot intimidate the sons of 
the men who refused to submit to British mandates, and sup- 
ported that refusal with energy and effect in the field of battle. 

When I reflect on the danger of separation, I ask myself 
what is this danger incurred for? and it seems to me like noth- 
ing at all; there are no orders in council now to contend about; 
nearly all the ports England declared to be blockaded are now 
open to Neutrals; we have declared that we will not employ 
British seamen, which will in treaty draw from the British Min- 
istry a declaration that while we act up to that declaration they 
will not molest our seamen. I hope Bonaparte's humiliation 
has emancipated our government, so that they are not obliged 
to carry on this War in obedience to his mandate, and instead 
of a peace between some of the Northern States and Britain 
we shall hear soon of a National peace with that power. I 
confess the prospect is not so brilliant as I wish, when I see 
the names of those appointed to negotiate, and when I observe 
the delay and the place our Government has chosen for nego- 
tiation. If they had been in right earnest they would have 
sent a mission direct to London, and ere this had a cessation of 
hostilities. 

Permit me, my dear sir, once more to remind you of the im- 
portance of preserving the Union to the last extremity. Be- 
sides the reasons commonly urged, and well enforced by Mr. 
Dexter, your dexterous democratic candidate, the New England 
people ought to consider their very limited boundary; the ex- 
tensive vacant world west of them, to a share of which they are 
entitled ; the importance of keeping open the road for their vast 
surplus population to emigrate into other parts of the same 



492 



APPENDIX 



Nation, carrying with them their steady habits, their industry 
and their ingenuity, to which every other people pay deference 
and give place. I can remember when nine-tenths of the peo- 
ple of New York State were Dutch, when their population was 
inferior to that of Rhode Island. They are the first of the 
States now, and they are New England people. Ohio State 
will contain within a few years a majority of New England 
people; several counties in Virginia have majorities of New 
England people. You would be surprised to see how the 
little Colony from New England here has Yankeefied the peo- 
ple. These are considerations of no small weight, and ought 
to be thrown in the scale against the present sufferings of New 
England. They have a right to consider that their sufferings 
and vexations will be immeasurably compensated by keeping 
open the door for their posterity to emigrate to comfort, opu- 
lence and consideration, if not to eminence. 

I am, with truly affectionate regard, your friend, 

M. Lyon. 

P. S. — My good friend : I frequently hear from you. I ob- 
serve your efforts to restore our Nation to its usual state of 
health and peace with pleasure. I see with indignation the 
foolish ravings of those who hate you because they know you 
not. I take your word for it that to remember me is not un- 
pleasant to you. I would like to see the sentiments contained 
herein published. 

M. L." 

I was informed by the late Mr. Thompson A, Lyon, of 
Louisville, that among the most intimate of his grandfather's 
friends were Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, styled by Jef- 



APPENDIX 493 

ferson " Ultimus Romanorum," Stevens Thompson Mason of 
Virginia, and Albert Gallatin, the ablest of America's early 
financiers. My informant said that his grandfather received 
many letters from these gentlemen, some of which were of 
great historical value. He went to Eddyville from his home in 
Louisville to search for them for me, but unfortunately all 
were gone, and the quest was unsuccessful. The following 
letter from Mr. Gallatin is taken from his published works : 

LETTER FROM ALBERT GALLATIN TO MATTHEW LYON.* 

" New York, May 7, 1816. 

Sir. — I was much gratified by the receipt of your friendly 
letter of 29th October last, which ought to have been sooner 
acknowledged, but which I will not, before my departure for 
Europe, leave unanswered. I am sorry for your losses, but 
hope that the property you have left will be sufficient to make 
you as comfortable as your active industry and knowledge of 
business certainly deserve. 

The war has been productive of evil and good, but I think 
the good preponderates. Independent of the loss of lives, and 
of the losses in property by individuals, the war has laid the 
foundation of permanent taxes and military establishments, 
which the Republicans had deemed unfavorable to the happi- 
ness and free institutions of the country. But under our for- 
mer system we were becoming too selfish, too much attached 
exclusively to the acquisition of wealth, above all, too much 
confined in our political feelings to local and State objects. 
The war has renewed and reinstated the national feelings and 

* Writings of Albert Gallatin, edited by Henry Adams, vol. I, p. 700- 
701. 



494 APPENDIX 

character which the Revolution had given, and which were 
daily lessened. The people have now more general objects of 
attachment with which their pride and political opinions are 
connected. THey are more Americans; they feel and act more 
as a nation; and I hope that the permanency of the Union is 
thereby better secured. 

It is with reluctance that I have accepted the French mis- 
sion; and I hope that my absence will be short, and that I will 
soon be able to return with my family in the bosom of my 
friends and country. My private business, to which I had 
during the last fifteen years hardly attended, has suffered and 
will continue to suffer. Amongst other objects, I fear I may 
have lost the tract of 666 2-3 acres on Cumberland River, hav- 
ing never taken any measures to remove the man who had 
taken possession. I do not know his name; and I will thank 
you to communicate it to Mr. Robert Alexander, President of 
the Bank of Kentucky, at Frankfort, together with any infor- 
mation you have respecting that man's claim and disposition, 
and the quality and value of the land. I have given to Mr. 
Alexander a power of attorney for my Kentucky lands, and 
told him that you would give him that information, 

Mrs. Gallatin sends you her compliments. I never received 
your letter respecting a glass-house and the procuring of glass- 
blowers. I would attend to it if I knew what capital you and 
your friends can employ in the establishment. On that point 
success depends. There must be no embarrassment, or busi- 
ness would be ruinous. I commenced mine with about ten 
thousand dollars, and made no profit during the first years, nor 
until the capital amounted to near twenty thousand. That 
now employed in our glass-works, including outstanding debts. 



APPENDIX 495 

exceeds forty thousand, and g^ves us an annual profit of about 
eight thousand, of which only one-seventh part belongs to 
me. I must observe that there is an inconvenience in your 
situation. You are below the greater part of the fast-improv- 
ing country north of the Ohio, in which the great consumption 
of glass takes place. The works situated high up the Ohio, at 
Pittsburg and above, have in that respect a great advantage. 
At New Orleans market you must meet the competition of the 
cheap German glass. 

I have lost three old friends, — ^Mr. Savary, Thos. Clare, and 
Mr. Smilie. You have heard that Dr. Jones, of Virginia, Rich- 
ard Brent, and Stanford, of North Carolina, are also dead. 
With sincere regard, &c., 

Albert Gallatin." 

letter of colonel lyon to senator armisted c. mason. 

The losses of Colonel Lyon, referred to by Mr. Gallatin, led 
to the first application for office, except from the people at the 
ballot-box, which Lyon ever made to government. It proved 
successful. President Monroe, unlike Mr. Madison, was his 
friend, and appointed him United States Factor to the Cherokee 
Nation. Colonel Lyon had been more in the habit of bestowing 
patronage on others than asking for it on his own behalf. This 
letter to Mr. Mason, who soon after fell in a duel, is interesting 
and of historic value. 

I am indebted for it to the granddaughter by marriage of 
President Monroe, Mrs. S. L. Gouverneur, Jr., of Washington, 
D. C. With a kindness which I cannot too gratefully acknowl- 
edge, Mrs. Gouverneur copied it for me from the collection of 
President Monroe's invaluable literary remains. The State 



496 APPENDIX 

Department was negotiating for the purchase by Governnient 
of the collection, and hence Mrs. Gouvemeur could not send 
me the original. If all the possessors of valuable documents 
were as obliging as this cultivated lady, our literary men would 
be greatly assisted and benefited: 

" Frankfort, Jany. i6th, 1817. 
Hon. Armisted C. Mason: 

Dear Sir : I am here to repel an attempt to remove the Seat 
of Justice from Eddyville and have spent the Christmas holi- 
days with your friends. 

Until I saw him here I had but little acquaintance with your 
brother Jack. I am extremely pleased with him, and I do 
hope you will succeed in getting him the place of District 
Judge. Should he obtain the appointment I do believe he will 
do honour to the station, to the family, and to himself. 

By having lost a fine vessel, and the greater part of a valu- 
able cargo at the commencement of the late War, and by an 
immense loss occasioned by the first Embargo, I am reduced to 
dependence on my children — children whom I had properly 
educated to business, to morals, to integrity, and a proper sense 
of honour. They are in a good way, and will ever use me 
kindly, but dependence is dependence, however the kindness 
of friends may soften it. By giving all my attention to the 
building that ship and providing that cargo, I lost the pending 
election, and my standing in the Nation, and my situation is 
so remote, that I found when I came here that I was as much 
of a stranger as if I had just come from Russia. Having 
taken it in my head for the first time in my life to ask from 
the Government an office, I know of no person so proper to 



APPENDIX .^^ 

497 

apply through as the son of my long lost, best friend, and I do 
this because my situation with the Delegation of this State is 
such that I have nothing to expect from them. I know 
neither of our Senators. I never was intimate with Mr. Clay, 
and he knows I always preferred Mr. Pope to him; — Johnson 
and Desha have long hated me for my opposition to the Em- 
bargo System. McLean, Sharp and Taul represent my old 
district, — to the first I have always had an aversion, — the 
second, if he ever was a friend, he was a cold one, the last was 
a friend. All three impute to my pen a portion of that zeal 
against the Compensation law which has allowed them to stay 
at home in future.** McKee only do I know of the balance of 
the Kentucky delegation. He thinks well of me, but as we 
live remote from each other and we have corresponded but 
little since I left Congress, I have no more to expect from him 
than a good word whenever he is called upon. 

I see there is a probability of a Territorial Government in 
the Eastern part of the new Mississippi Territory. I have long 
wished to remove to that country. The cHmate would suit me; 
I believe my life, health and strength have been lengthened ten 
years by my removal from Vermont. There has been a con- 
stant removal to that country from my old Congressional Dis- 
trict, and the best friends I have had in the Western country are 
there. Not having the means to establish myself I wish for 
one of the appointments there which the Government will have 
in their, power to bestow, and I may be thought qualified to 
fill. 

Believing you will be disposed to serve me, and thinking 

oThis " salary grab," like that of 1873, proved fatal to nearly every 
member who voted for it. 



498 APPENDIX 

it no more than proper that you should be able to speak of me 
understandingiy, I will give you a short sketch of my political 
life. 

In 1774 when British encroachments on our rights was rais- 
ing the spirit of resistance, I laid before the youngerly men in 
my neighborhood, in the country now called Vermont, a plan 
for an armed association which was adopted. We armed and 
clothed ourselves uniformly. We hired an old veteran to teach 
us discipline, and we each of us took the command in turn, so 
that every one should know the duty of every station. With 
a part of this company of Minute Men, immediately after the 
Lexington battle I joined Ethan Allen. Eighty-live of us took 
from one hundred and forty British veterans, the fort Ticonde- 
roga, which contained the artillery and warlike stores which 
drove the British from Boston, and aided in taking Burgoyne 
and Cornwallis. That fort contained when we took it more 
cannon, mortar pieces and other military stores than could be 
found in all the revolted Colonies. At the rate captors have 
been paid in the late War, our plunder which we gave to the 
Nation without even pay for our time was worth more than a 

million of dollars. I persuaded many of the Royal Irish 

Company taken there to join us, who afterwards distinguished 
themselves in our cause. In the same month, April 1775, for 
the purpose of taking an armed sloop in the Lake it was neces- 
sary to mount two heavy pieces of ordnance at Crown Point. 
Our European artilleryists said it could not be obtained with- 
out a ruinous delay. With the assistance of a few back-woods- 
men, and some timber readily procured, I mounted them and 
put the match to the first cannon ever fired under the auspices 
of the American Eagle, whose renown has spread far and wide. 



APPENDIX 499 

The first summer I was appointed one of the first Revolution- 
ary adjutants. In 1776 I accepted of a second Lieutenancy in 
a corps designed for the defense of the Vermont frontier; their 
destination was to be fixed by the Committee of Safety, of 
which I was a member. General Gates influenced by design- 
ing Tories, ordered the party then consisting of less than 100 
men, 70 miles in advance of our army, and within 40 miles of 
the enemy's grand army; the men knowing this was contrary 
to the will of the Committee of Safety, their fathers, and their 
friends, mutinied and left the station. The officers were blamed 
by the exasperated Gates, and I who had done everything to 
support the General's orders was, with the rest of the officers, 
cashiered. Not discouraged by this ill usage, and being re- 
ceived with open arms by my Colonel, and the other officers of 
my militia regiment, I was in my station of Adjutant in the 
retreat from Ticonderoga in 1777, and on account of the ser- 
vices I rendered that army in that difficult retreat, the Generals 
who had seen me abused the year before, procured for me an 
appointment of Paymaster in the regiment on the Continental 
Establishment, with the rank of Captain in the army. In this 
situation, besides attending to the duties of my station, I with 
my gun and bayonet was in many rencounters, and assisted at 
the taking of Burgoyne, and had the honour and pleasure of 
seeing his army pile their arms. In 1778 the regiment having 
lost near two-thirds of its number in the many battles and 
affairs of 1777, was ordered to the Southward, where it was 
expected it would be incorporated with other regiments, and 
the supernumerary officers discharged. At the request of my 
Vermont friends I resigned my station in the army, and the 
next week was chosen and appointed a Captain in the militia. 



500 APPENDIX 

I was immediately appointed Paymaster-General of the Troops 
and the Militia of the State, Secretary to the Governor and 
Council, and assistant to the Treasurer. At the next election 
I was chosen a member of the Legislature, to which station I 
was afterwards i8 times re-elected. Twice I was returned from 
two places, having a home in both. One place chose me fear- 
ing the other would neglect me. In 1778 and 1779 our militia 
was much employed on the frontiers of New York and Ver- 
mont; they had the choice of regimental officers, and such was 
my reputation among them that in 1780 I had the vote of every 
oflficer and every soldier in the Regiment to fill the vacancy 
occasioned by the loss of our chief Colonel. The unanimity 
was occasioned by the Lieutenant Colonel insisting that the 
command of the regiment ought to be given to me, and that 
the example he set ought to be followed by the Majors and 
every officer that outranked me. This station I held until by 
the Peace I was allowed to move out of the bounds of the regi- 
ment on to lands I owned in the country that had been occu- 
pied by the enemy. At this time I renounced every public 
station, except that of representing the people in Conventions 
or Legislature, besides serving in many clerkships. I was fre- 
quently solicited to be a Judge, and once was appointed against 
my will and refusal. Although I lost almost all my property 
in the early part of the War by the encroachment of the 
enemy, and my giving my whole time to military pursuits, I 
had so attended to my affairs in the more advanced stages of 
the war, and towards its close, that I was able under the most 
favorable auspices to set agoing a number of mills and manu- 
factures which made me rich; so that when the struggles com- 
menced between aristocrats and democrats, I had wealth, high 



APPENDIX 501 

political standing, an established character, and powerful con- 
nections attached to me by long riveted confidence, as well as 
matrimonial affinity, to throw in the scale. Nature, reflection 
and patriotism led me to take the Democratic side. 

On a sudden I was surrounded by newspapers containing 
high toned British doctrines flowing in upon us from the hire- 
ling presses of New Hampshire in the east, Sedgwick & Co. in 
the south. New York apostates in the west, and Royalists of 
Canada in the north. Tory doctrines were flowing freely from 
the favoured presses of Vermont. The Republicans, save the 
family with which I was connected, were poor— all were parsi- 
monious; while they cried out for a Republican press, and flat- 
tered me on the score of my wealth and generosity, they would 
not advance a cent. I gave $1000— for press, types and appa- 
ratus. I hired a printer, the best Republican essays were 
selected. My pen was not idle; newspapers were dispensed, 
pay or no pay, by carriers who were to give half the price, but 
they always complained they could not collect their half. I 
had a paper mill, I had pamphlets containing these essays ready 
to give every traveler. By this means the Republican doc- 
trines were scattered through the Northern States which are 
now bearing fruit. By my exertions to keep Vermont in- 
formed, the district I lived in was in the worst of times repre- 
sented by a RepubHcan, and when it was thought that Israel 
Smith was growing luke-warm the people sent me to Congress. 
Besides the original cost of my press and types which were so 
worn out in the public service that I could not sell them for 
$100, the keeping that press going did not cost me less than 
$3000 in five years. 



502 APPENDIX 

In '98 and '99 Mr. Jefferson pressed me much to obtain a 
printer to print a Republican paper at Staunton. After con- 
siderable inquiry I could persuade no one I thought compe- 
tent to the undertaking willing to go there; I had a nephew 
brought up in my family — a pretty good workman and indus- 
trious, but not likely to make an editor; I stated this to Mr. 
Jefferson; he said he would do, the editorship would be at- 
tended to by a friend on the spot. At his request communi- 
cated through your father I brought him to Philadelphia, and 
he was at the cost of the Virginia Republicans set up in Staun- 
ton. After a little while he complained that the funds pro- 
vided were exhausted — that the paper would not support itself, 
but he thought if he could get a small book store, he could 
make a livmg out of both. I procured for him $1000 worth of 
books and sent them to him. After worrying along for some 
time he got sick and in debt; his ofifice and the remnant of the 
book store were sold to pay his debts. I have never received 
a cent for my $1000. 

You can but recollect our victory over Federalism by Mr. 
Jefferson's election, and the part I bore in that memorable 
transaction. Had I left the House, my colleague would have 
given the vote of Vermont. Dent would have left the House 
also, and Maryland's vote would have been for Burr, and Linn 
would have changed his vote ; he had repeatedly signified to me 
that he would; in that case Burr would have been elected. 
Brown of Rhode Island was placed by my side for the purpose 
of corrupting me; — he did his best. It was believed by your 
father and many others that I might have received $30,000 
merely to absent myself. I have no claim on this score, except 
the claim I have to having it remembered I did my duty under 



APPENDIX 503 

circumstances which might have been considered by some as 
temptations. I could not be tempted by all the wealth of the 
aristocracy to fail in the duty I owed the nation at that time. 
Last August the people of the District were extremely anxious 
to have me represent them in Congress again. But previous to 
our having knowledge of the Compensation Law, and the 
stir occasioned by it, I had pledged myself to support one Pat- 
ton— a smart sensible lawyer in an adjoining county who had 
been of use to us in the Legislature of the State. When he 
could not be elected, they wished him to consent to my offer- 
ing; he persisted he could be elected. New offered and was 
elected when his supporters chiefly voted for him, because they 
would not have a lawyer. The probability is that at the next 
election I can be elected if my luck changes. 

From Mr. Madison I have nothing to expect, although 
I do not think there is a man in the world that has 
a higher opinion of my political knowledge or integrity. 
I have conversed much with him on matters wherein we 
differed; he has felt the weight and justice of my obser- 
vations. He has felt the weight of my pen when it has 
followed his, but he knows I opposed his election, and that 
I always preferred Mr. Monroe to him, whom I have ever 
esteemed. I was pleased when he went to France. I was one 
of those who at Philadelphia gave him a public welcome home 
when Mr. Adams and his party turned a scornful eye to him. 
When I took the tour of Virginia on my way to this country, 
agreeably to the wishes of your father and his friends, I zeal- 
ously recommended James Monroe for Governor, and a gen- 
eral ticket for President. I spent more than a month in Vir- 
ginia on that tour; being just out of prison, I was looked 



504 APPENDIX 

to as a martyr, and every word had weight. I urged his ap- 
pointment to the English Embassy. I was pleased with his 
conduct there and with his Treaty. I defended and ever de- 
fended his character; I defended him in the papers in our part 
of Kentucky, while the papers hereabouts were vilifying and 
belittling him. I lost my election for elector by 80 votes be- 
cause the printers in this part of the State, whose papers chiefly 
circulate in the greater part of the lower third part, or nearer 
half of the State, which formed our district, would not insert 
my name as a candidate, so that I have nothing to fear from a 
dilTerence of opinion between Mr. Monroe and myself. 
I am, dear sir, with great respect and affection, 

Your obedient servant, 

M. Lyon. 

P. S. — I have written to my old friend Macon, to friend 
McKee, and to my old acquaintance Tichenor in the Senate. 
I wish you to converse with them on the subject. 

M. L." 

A POLITICAL CURIOSITY, 

The Appendix would be incomplete v;ithout Colonel Lyon's 
letter to Niles's "Register," written in April, 1822, three months 
before his death, and published in the " Register " December 
7, 1822, Mr. Niles, in introducing it in his columns, says: 
" It contains a large portion of wholesome truth, and may be 
regarded as that which we have called it — a political curiosity." 
But it is deeply to be regretted that the editor saw fit to omit 
Lyon's opinions of several candidates for the Presidency, and 
his {rank and free remarks on their claims and competency. 



APPENDIX 505 

He knew public men thoroughly, and was in the habit of tell- 
ing the truth inflexibly. Hence the pity his manly opinions 
were suppressed by timid Mr. Niles. This letter is in Colonel 
Lyon's characteristic style, and, as his last public utterance, 
may be regarded as a farewell address to his fellow- 
citizens : 

"Mr. Niles: A quotation from a Washington city paper, 
exulting in the continued carnival and the constant routine of 
dissipation kept up in that Modern Venice, has roused the dor- 
mant pen of a man of old times, and led him to request a place 
in your Register for his lucubrations on the much agitated 
subject, the next presidential election. Nothing could more 
accord with the feelings and opinions of those I converse with, 
than your determined opposition to a congressional caucus on 
this subject. No place so improper for president-making as 
Washington, in which the most eminent sycophants of the 
nation are gathered together. 

What habits of dissipation and extravagance have the rulers 
of this republican nation descended to since the declaration of 
our independence. In those days we recollected with consola- 
tion and pleasure what was said to their master by the Spanish 
envoys sent to treat with the revolted Netherlanders, whose 
negotiators furnished their frugal meals from their own wallets : 
" Such men," said the haughty Spaniards, " cannot be con- 
quered, their frugality will save them," In former times, we 
prided ourselves in the simplicity of our habits, and the unos- 
tentatiousness of our rulers. 

Luxury, dissipation, extravagance and effeminacy, their con- 
comitants, have been the destruction of many ancient nations 
besides proud Rome, which from being mistress of the world, 



506 APPENDIX 

has dwindled to the mere patrimony of a pontiff. Every per- 
son conversant with the history of the French revolution, 
knows that the dissipation, the luxury, the debauchery, effemi- 
nacy and the rapacity of the court, brought on the bloody 
scenes and the heartrending miseries which that giddy nation 
has suffered. We have before us the warning fate of the 
British nation, where the avails of the hard earnings and the 
life labor of thousands and tens of thousands are screwed 
from them to glut the rapacity of an individual, who regards 
them less than he does his dogs. Time was when the people 
of the British Isles would not have borne with this; but, with 
the people's money, the devouring government buys men 
and arms to enable it to wrest the means of defence from the 
oppressed, build prisons to incarcerate, and gallowses to hang 
those on who dare to murmur or complain. However distant 
from us this state of things may seem to be, dissipation, ex- 
travagance and luxury is the sure road that leads to it. Our 
civil list expenditure has increased within about thirty years, 
faster than ever did that of Great Britain: while our popula- 
tion has been increasing at the rate of from four to ten, the 
expenditure for support of our national government has more 
than ten folded; for the year 1790, $141,492.73 cents was the 
appropriation; of late years more than a million and a half has 
been appropriated for the support of the civil list. About two 
thirds of this sum, besides a considerable share of many other 
appropriations, is spent in our beggarly capital, too much of 
which is applied to purposes of corruption and political pros- 
titution. In 1790, when th^ necessaries of life were about the 
same price that they are now, $16,750 paid the salaries of the 
secretaries, the comptroller, the auditor, the treasurer, and the 



APPENDIX 507 

register, and $800 each was appropriated for the salary of th^ 
first clerks. In 1821, there was appropriated for the salaries 
of the officers of the same denomination $51,500, and $1,800 
were given to an inferior clerk. 

It is not merely on account of the number of mendicants 
begging alms in the streets, that I call Washington our " beg- 
garly capital." They are much easier got rid of than the beg- 
gars to be met with in higher life. 

While I sojourned in that City I was almost daily assailed 
by a host of clerks complaining of the parsimony of congress, 
the scanty pittance allowed them, and the expenses of living. I 
have often been tired with hearing one or other of them com- 
pare his salary and his duties with those of more favored clerks, 
always insisting that his duties were more important and more 
difficult than the other whose salary was higher. I recollect 
one of the clerks lamenting, that he had to give two dollars 
that morning for about a quart of green peas, and a dollar for a 
pair of small chickens. This was so early in the season that I 
had not imagined that the peas were in bloom, and when I 
thought chickens of that year could not be fit to eat. I ob- 
served to him that flour was selling at six dollars a barrel, and 
bacon at eight cents a pound — and that the price of a few 
quarts of such peas would purchase a cow, which could get her 
living in the common while she gave milk for his children. As 
for his part, he replied, that he could not eat bacon, and did 
not like milk, and his children were not used to them. 

The next class of beggars were the officers and their assist- 
ants in waiting about congress hall. Those by their civilities, 
their attentions, their gestures and their intimations, were con- 
stantly reminding the members of their wants and wishes. 



508 APPENDIX 

Whenever I fell in company with a number of the officers 
of the army, I was sure of being reminded of the parsimony of 
congress, and of being told how poorly they were paid. 

The judges of the District of Columbia (a District which 
ought to pay its own judges) were, one or other of them, ever 
complaining of the parsimony of congress, and begging for a 
larger salary. 

The most importunate beggars of all were the higher officers. 
With those I have occasionally dined, and where the greatest 
profusion prevailed. There might be seen fresh beef, pork and 
butter from Maryland, mutton from Pennsylvania, hams from 
Burlington, turkeys and chickens from Virginia, pickled beef 
and codfish from Massachusetts, potatoes from Carolina and 
from Maine; wild fowl and fresh fish from the Potomac; sal- 
mon from Canada; oysters from New York; olives and spices 
from both the Indies; raisins and figs from the Mediterranean; 
nuts from Germany, Italy and the Mississippi; brandy from 
Nantz; rum from Jamaica; gin from Holland; cheese from the 
Netherlands, from England and from Connecticut; wines from 
Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, Madeira and the Cape of 
Good Hope ; and porter from London. 

While the cloth was removing and the glasses replacing, 
some sycophant, (perhaps a member of congress) was sure to 
commence a dissertation on the parsimony of our government, 
and the inadequate compensation given to our officers. The 
more frequently the glasses were emptied the more attention 
was paid to the orator, until his doctrine was echoed from side 
to side. Too often have the guests carried the infatuation away 
with them, and I have had occasion to entreat them to resume 
their reason and their common sense — referring them to what 



APPENDIX 



509 



their eyes had seen and their lips had tasted, to convince them 
that instead of being parsimonious the government gave too 
much to their officers, when they enabled them to feed their 
guests in a style so far above the medium of good-living. I 
reminded them that man was much the creature of fashion and 
imitation, and begged them to look around and consider what 
a number there was plunging themselves into ruin and misery, 
by their endeavors to furnish a table like that we had lately 
sat at, always insisting that it was impolitic, as well as immoral 
to appropriate the hard earnings of the people for the encour- 
agement and support of such voluptuousness. 

I have been led to these recollections and reflections by the 
perusal of the before mentioned extract from a Washington 
City paper, which says, " This place can never be tedious. The 
pleasures of the day are succeeded by the pleasures of the 
night; for the president and his four secretaries, by means of 
drawing rooms and parties have appropriated the nights to 
pleasure as well as the day." One would be led to believe 
that members of congress and strangers of distinction would 
be surfeited by this continued succession of delights, and " like 
the bee, die on the rose in aromatic pain." But no such thing 
— their appetites are rather sharpened than blunted by per- 
petual indulgence, and the poor secretaries, who are all looking 
up to the presidency, are obliged to feed and plaister them on 
all occasions. 

Is it for this that the people of the nation send representa- 
tives to Washington, and pay each of them $56 a week? Is 
it to spend their nights in revelry and their days in slumber, 
that they have been sent there? Is it to enable the higher 
officers of government " to feed and plaister," to corrupt and 



510 APPENDIX 

prostitute their representatives, that they have suffered the late 
great increase of their salanes to pass almost unnoticed? If 
this apathy is continued, they will only merit the political deg- 
radation and perdition which infallibly await them. 

I by no means consider it amiss for the president to invite 
"members of congress and strangers of distinction to call upon 
him and dine with him, or for a drawing room entertainment, 
once in a while, to be given at his house. At those convivial 
meetings, the president has an opportunity to become person- 
ally acquainted with his guests, and they with him and with 
one another. Their sentiments and opinions are frequently 
interchanged. This practice prevailed in the early stages of 
the government, and, for its support, a superb mansion, ready 
furnished, is provided, and $25,000 salary for the president is 
appropriated. But, at the rate things seem to be going on, the 
poor secretaries are not to leave off feeding and plaistering, nor 
congress giving, until each of them has $25,000 a year to sup- 
port the magnificent ' succession of delights/ those ' pleasures 
by day ' and ' pleasures by night,' so boastingly spoken of by 
the Washington editor — who tells us the secretaries are all 
looking to the presidency ; and it seems by the nm of the tale, 
that one or other of them is expected to be foisted into the 
presidential chair by this banqueting and revelry. 

It has been too much the practice of the candidates for the 
electorship to pledge themselves to vote for this or that par- 
ticular candidate. This practice, as well as the congressional 
caucus, ought to be discarded, and by the legislature of every 
State naming the persons they wish to be the next president 
and vice-president, that the electors will be able to select men 
who will give satisfaction to the nation. Satisfaction to the 



APPENDIX 511 

nation is the main point — as the elements and principles of our 
government are so plain and simple, that there are more than 
one thousand honest, well informed men in the States who are 
as capable of administering the government for four or eight 
years, as any of the most celebrated candidates hitherto spoken 
of, while the number of exceptionable characters, who aspire 
to the station, is comparatively small. 

Hoping and believing that the legislatures of the States will 
generally fall into the practice of nomination, I have amused 
myself with contemplating the extended field of choice which 
will be presented to the electors. 

I hope the presidential chair will never be filled by a man 
under sixty years of age, until there shall be a constitutional 
bar agains:t electing the same person oftener than once or 
twice. A president of the United States possesses such vast 
powers and prerogatives, and such immense patronage, — has 
so many offices and favors to bestow, and so much public 
money to disburse, that it is next to impossible to oust one 
who shall act with a common share of prudence and foresight. 
Had Gen. Washington chosen to accept a third election, al- 
though not without objection, he would have obtained it by 
seven eighths of the electoral votes. So with Mr. Jefferson, — 
he had early to announce his solemn determination not to ac- 
cept a third election, in order to avoid solicitation, — and to 
him we owe the rule which forbids any person to look for a 
third election to the presidency. It is but a rule however. I 
have never been better pleased with the political course of a 
president than that of Mr. Monroe, — yet I have trembled for 
fear that he would be induced, by the sycophancy which sur- 
rounds him, to agree to accept a third election." 



512 APPENDIX 

Mr. Niles abruptly cuts off Colonel Lyon here, with this 
editorial remark: 

" The writer then proceeds to mention several persons who, 
he supposed, might be nominated by the several States, and 
gives his remarks freely on their claims and competency. &c., 
all of which we think it better to omit. He concludes with 
these words : ' Such are the opinions of a man of old times, 
written on the Mississippi, in April, 1822.' " 



FINIS. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Adams, Johw, Itrtroduction, 82. 
127, 128, 169, 195, 202, 208, 209, 
210, 219, 220, 306, 307, 308, 309, 
310, 311, 312, 314, 317, 323, 324, 

339, 341, 357, 375, 380, 396, 397- 

Adams, Abigail, 210, 390. 

Adams, Samuel, 54, 128, 132, 135, 
169. 

Adams, John Quincy, 302, 419. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 220. 

Adams, Henry, 210, 230, 453, 

Adams, C. N., 202. 

Addison, Vermont, 84. 

Addresses to President, 3109, 310. 

Aeneas, Pious, 410. 

Age of Homespun, 75, 193. 

Alien and Sedition Laws, Intro- 
duction, I, 208, 307, 3(20, 322. 

Aliens, 308. 

Albany, New York, 84, 112, 130. 
Convention, 52. Officials, iii, 

113, 117- 

Algonquin Indians, 52, 83. 

Allen, Ethan, Introduction, 66, 
69, 71, 80, 81, 82, 90, 91, 92, 93, 
94, 95, 98, 100, 102, 103, 104, 
106, 112, 113, 114, IIS, 116, 117, 
118, 131, 156, 157, 162, 163, 165, 
171, 175, 176, 191, 407. 

Allen, Ira, 79, 80, 81, 82, 103, 129, 
142, 143, 144, 145, 148, 151, 152, 
156, 157, 163, 170, 171, 175, 176, 
177- 

Allen, Zimri, 81. 

Allen, Heman, 81. 



Allen, Fanny, 192. 

Allen, Loraine, 191, 192. 

Allen, John, 221, 223. 

Alliance between France and 
United States, 155. 

Alphonso and Dalinda, 206. 

American captain with whom 
Matthew Lyon sailed, 34, 38. 

America, 96, i68. 

American Livy, 131; forces, 132, 
133; generals, 134; independ- 
ence, 144; colonies, 169; revolu- 
tion, 169. 

Ancient Woodbury, History of, 
by Wm. Cothren, 30, 44, 45, 47, 
48, 59, 63, 64, 66, 90, 196. 

Annals of Fifth Congress, 248 to 
300, 320. 

Anti-Gallicans, 312. 

Appleton's Cyclopedia, art. Mat- 
thew Lyon, 29. 

Apprentice system, prices under, 
68. 

Arkansas Territory, 165, 472, 473, 

474- 
Army, Provisional, 314. 
Arlington, Vermont, 59, 60, 156, 

157, 159, 166, 167, 175, 193, 193, 

194, 195- 
Arnold, Benedict, 67, 131, 132. 
Aspect of iniquity, 173. 
Assumption of debts of States, 

219. 
Aston, Sir Richard, 14. 
Astrological badinage, 439. 



5x3 



514 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Aurora, The, 229, 235, 236, 237. 
Austin, Apollos, 376. 
Autobiography of Matthew 
Lyon, 27, 415. 

Bacon, Jabez, 41, 44, 45, 63, 64, 

65, 66, 67, 68, 72, 196. 
Back door of Cabinet, Hamilton 

at, 220, 312. 
Bailey, General, of Newbury, 149. 
Baker, Remember, 48, 66, 80, 81, 

156. 
Baker, Joel C, 99, 164. 
Balance of power, loi. 
Ballad, Democratic, 227. 
Baldwin and Gunn difficulty, 302. 
Bancroft, George, 55, 103, 127, 

131, 168. 
Barkesdale, Gen. Wm. and John 

Covode, fight in the House, 

304- 
Barlow, Joel, 315. 
Barre, Colonel, 59. 
Barrett, Justice, 190. 
Barrington, Sir Jonah, I, 21a. 
Basswood paper, 199. 
Battle of Bennington, 155, 157, 

161, 174. 
Batten-Kill, 137. 
Bayard, James A., 318, 319, 380, 

383, 384, 385, 388, 389, 390, 391. 

His reconciliation with Col- 
onel Lyon, 446. 
Baylcy, Jacob, 142. 
Beaman, Rev. N. S. S., 180, 407, 

408, 409. 
Beauregard, General, 314. 
Bcecher, Rev. Lyman, 77. 
Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward, 201. 
Bell-Turney fight in Congress, 

302. 
Benedict, Abel, 157. 



Benjamm, Sally, 196. 

Bennington Mob, 106, 113. 

Bennington, 85, 91, 136, 137, 143. 

Bennington Gazette, 206. 

Benton-Jackson fight, 302. Ben- 
ton kills Lucas, 302. 

Berkeley, Bishop George, 6, 38. 

Births and birthdays, 32, 310. 

Black Cockades, 337. 

Blackwood's Magazine, 55. 

Bladensburg, Mason-McCarty 
duel at, 301. 

Blessington, Lady, In-troduction. 

Bludgeon, Griswold attacks 
Lyon with a, 228. 

Blue Laws. 76, 88. 

Blue Lights, 389. 

Board of Trade, English, $2, 103, 
106. 

Boxing school. Congress a, 235. 

Bold Sweeper, Matthew Lyon 
called, 204. 

Blount, Charles, 91. 

Boone, Daniel, 82, 136. 

Boston Repertory, 445. 

Boundary lines, 104, 107, III. 

Bookbinder, Lyon a, 15. 

Boyish piece of business, 222. 

Bradley, Benjamin, 98. 

Bradley, Daniel, 98. 

Bradley, Stephen R., 170, 180. 

Breda, Treaty of, no. 

Brinley Library, Sale of, 208. 

Brown, John, of Rhode Island, 

393- 
Brown, Major. 116, 117. 
Brownson, Timothy, X76. 
Brooks, Preston S., assaults 

Charles Sumner, 304. 
Brooks, Congressman, 231. 
Brook, The Roaring, 99. 
British America, loi, i6i, 163. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



515 



Bryce, James, 316. 

Burke, Edmund, 6, 16, 37, 56. 

Bushnell, Rev. Horace, 75. 

Buncomb, American, not Eng- 
lish in o«rder, 202. 

Burgoyne, General, 114, 126, 130, 
132, 133, 135, 137. 140, 141. 155, 
156. 164, 175- 

Butler, Prof. James Davie, 83, 
169, 178. 

Burr's conspiracy and intrigues, 
228. 318, 38s, 386, 387, 391, 392, 
393, 411, 432, 450, 463, 464. 

Bynam and Garland fight in Con- 
gress, 302. Bynam and Jenifer 
duel, 302. 

Byron, Lord, 2Z3. 

By the bulls that redeemed me, 
Matthew Lyon, 35. 

By the bull that bought me, 
Rudyard Kipling, 218. 

Cadwell, Dr. George, marries 
Colonel Lyon's daughter, 80. 
His anti-slavery vote, 412, 413, 

415- 
Calhoun, John C, 9, 74, 86, 442. 
Camden, Battle of, 128, 129. 
Canada, 118, 119, 130, 133, 134, 

168, 174- 
Canaan, Connecticut, 70, 84. 
Canning, The Mephistophelian, 

459- 
Carey, Matthew, 461. 
Carey, Henry C, 461. 
Carpenter, Benjamin, 142, 148, 

150. 151- 
Carpenter's vile Life of Jefferson, 

169. 
Carroll, Bishop John, 226 
Carleton, General, 117, 118L 



Catholics and Protestants, 13. 

Cavaliers, The, 50. 

Ceremonies under Adams, 436, 
437- 

Champlain, Samuel, Father of 
New France, 82, 95. 

Champlain, Lake, 81, 82, 85, 95. 

Charles the First, 50. 

Charles the Second, no. 

Charlotte, General Gates escapes 
to, 128. 

Chestnut horse. The, of William 
of Orange, 6. 

Chesterfield, Lord, 226. 

Chatham, Lord, 52, 57, JZ- 

Chipman, Nathaniel, 99, 170, 176, 
177, 180, 181, 182, 183, 215, 216, 
217, 218, 224, 225. 

Cliipmans, The, 80. 

Chipman, Samuel, 99, 102. 

Chipman, Daniel, 145. His Life 
of Seth Warner, 116. 

Chittenden, Thomas, Introduc- 
tion, 60, 69, 72, 80, 82, 84, 85, 
87, 89, 127, 129, 136, 142, 144, 
147, 149, 156, 157, 162, 163, 164, 
165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 173, 
174, 175. 176, 177, 181, 182, 193, 
407. 

Chittenden, Bethuel, 72, 98. 

Chittenden, Martin, 89. 

Chittenden, L. E., 229, 411. 

Chittenden, Hannah, 193, 194. 

Christmas at Litchfield, 77. 

Church, Judge Samuel, 69, 74, Jjf 

79, 91- 
Cilley. Jonathan, killed in a duel 

by Wm. J. Graves, 303. 
Qinton, Gov. George, 115, 169, 

T70. 
Clarendon, Vermont, 97. 



5i6 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Clarendon, Lord, 324. 
Clingman, T. L., and W. L. 

Yancey fight a duel, 303. 
Clark, Henry, 216. 
Clark, Elisha, 99. 
Clark, Nathan, 142, 143, 148, 150, 

152. 
Clay, Henry, 301, 460. His hos- 
tility to Jefferson, 462, 463. 
Cobbett, William, 35, 212, 213, 

214, 215, 224, 235, 240, 241, 242, 

243, 244, 24s, 246, 247. 
Cochran, Colonel, 156, 227. 
Colden, Governor, 46, 100, 106. 
Colonial Assemblies, 52, 58. 
Collins, Richard, 7, 28, 195, 383- 
Collections of Chicago Historical 

Society, 429, 430, 431. 
Commissioners of Sequestration, 

143, 178, 179- 
Commission for investigation of 

defective titles, 19. 
Compromise at last, 103. 
Congregationalists, ^^. 
Connecticut, 170. 
Connecticut local histories, 29, 

31, 61, 81, 82, 84, 88, 108, 131, 

139- 
Connaught, Second exodus from, 

12. 
Convention, The word, gives 

them the horrors, 391. 
Conway Cabal, 128. 
Confiscation, First act of, 153- 
Confederacy of the Five Nations, 

83- 
Confederation, Vermont seeks to 

enter the, loi, 176. 
Congress, Introduction, 82, 84, 

115, 120, 127, 128, 132, 139, 155. 

158, 165, 170, 171, 174, 232, 234, 

300, 301, 310. 



Cottiers, The, yj. 

Continental Congress, 115, 117, 

131- 
Cothren, Wm., 30, 44, 61, 62, 64, 

65, 67. 68, 70. 
Continental Establishment, 94, 

138, 156, 163. 
Council of Censors, 179. 
Coxe, Tench, 214. 
Crawford, Wm. H., kills his 

man in one, and later is 

wounded in another duel, 302. 
Cornwall, Connecticut, 70, 84. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 20, 50, 51. 
Crown, The, 52. Lawyers, 57, 

58. 
Crown Point, 114, 123, 134. 
Crucial question, 104. 
Curran, Sarah, 2. 
Catlett, Dr., 430, 431. 

Dana, H. S., 158, 159, 160, 161, 
162. 

Dana, Congressman, 224, 446. 

Darby Narrows, 65. 

Dartmouth, Lord, 97, 106. 

Davenport, John, 76. 

Davis, Jefferson, in a chance 
medley, 302. 

Dawson, Henry B., 103, 197, 1981 

Dayton, Jonathan, 228, 232, 319. 

Debates in Congress, meagre re- 
ports of, 320. 

Delaplace, Commandant of Ti- 
conderoga, 131. 

Dent, Congressman, 227. 

De Puy's, H. W.. Ethan Allen 
and Green Mountain Heroes, 
117. 

Desmond, Earl of, 22. 

De Vergennes, Count, 92. 

Devon Charter, etc., 104, 107. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



517 



Dexter, Samuel, 489. 

Dexter, Mr., Assistant Librarian 

of Yale College, 327. 
Dorset Convention, 129, 159, 160, 

166. 
Douglas, Stephen A., 98. 
Drake, F. S., 28. 
Duane, James, 103. 
Dublin, 2, 15, 16, 23. 
Dulany, Daniel, the elder, 40, 72. 
Dulany, Daniel, the younger, 

oracle of the law, 55, 57, 7^. 
Dutch, The, of New York, 95, 

96. West India Company, no. 
Dwight, Timothy, 77, 85, 86, 87, 

89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 196, 

197. 

Early Scenes in Kentucky by 
Mrs. E. A. Roe, 99. 

Eastern troops, 132. 

East and West Unions, 171. 

Eaton. Theophilus, 76. 

Eddyville Colony, Introduction, 
412. 

Ejectment suits at Albany, 112. 

Ellsworth, Oliver, 318. 

Emigrant train of Colonel Lyon, 
412. 

Embargo, The, 114. 

Emmet, Robert, 2. 

Emmons, Benjamin, 159. 

England, 51, 52, 83, 96, loi, 156. 

English, The, 134, 168, 177. 

English Board of Trade, 103. 

English colonization in America, 
50. Liberty, 57. 

English language, 2. Irish Par- 
liament, 20. 

English newspapers on Alien and 
Sedition laws, 308. 

Enos, General, 176. 



Envoys to Ffance, 311. 
Europe, 100. 

European Settlements in Amer- 
ica, by Edmund Burke, 37. 

Fair Haven. Introduction, 80, 
87, 88, 161. Gazette, 206. 

Famine in Ireland, 11. 

Farmers' Library, 206. 

Fassett, Captain, 130, 157. John, 
176. 

Fay, Joseph, 130, 142. 

Fearon's Sketches of America, 

43- 

Federalist rhymers, 35. Party, 
165. Killed by John Adams, 
209. 

Federal doggerel and Democratic 
ballad, 227. Newspapers on 
Lyon-Griswold fracas, 238, 239. 

Federal city ridiculed by French 
lady, 389, and by Wolcott, 
Moore, Morris and Mrs. 
Adams, 390. 

Federal Constitution, 102, 103. 

Fermoy, General, 132. 

Ferrisburg, 81. 

Fessenden's verses, 35. He calls 
Lyon the Dagon of Democ- 
racy, 36. 

Final war and slaughter, loi. 

Findlay cited by Jefferson re- 
specting Harper, 209. 

Fitch, the brutal marshal, 338. 
Villany of exposed, 381. 

Foote. Rev. Dr.. 73. 

Foote, Senator H. S., draws pis- 
tol on Colonel Benton, knocks 
down John C. Fremont, and 
has a breakfast table fight with 
JeflFerson Davis, 302. 

Fort Edward, 137, 140. 



518 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Fort or Mount Defiance, 130. 

Fountain sources of State sover- 
eignty, 58. 

France, 51, 83, 96. Alliance with 
United States, 155, 167. 

Francis, Colonel, killed, 134, 
135- 

Frankfort, Kentucky, 113, 156. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 24. His ac- 
count of Irish Parliament, 25, 
26. Employs James Lyon, 80, 
95. His life by Matthew Lyon, 
206. 

Frazer, Colonel, 134. 

Freemen of the Provinces, 57. 

French, The, 95. Old French 
war, 100. 

Gage, General, 106. 

Galusha, Mrs. Beulah, second 
wife of Colonel Lyon, Intro- 
duction, 62. The Galushas, 80, 
166. 

Gallatin, Albert, 210. Lam- 
pooned by Porcupine, 214. 
Extracts from his letters, 229, 
230, 231, 319, 376, 389- Re- 
markable letter, 394, 432. Let- 
ter to Colonel Lyon, 491, 492, 

493- 
Gaston, William, 321. 
Gates, Horatio, 119, 120, 121, 122, 

127. Breaks with Washington, 

128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 136, 138, 
139, 160, 163, 177, 180. 

Georges, The three first, 120. 
George, Lake, 84, 95. 
George the Second, 107. 
George the Third, 155. 
Georgia students, 78. 



Gerry, Elbridge, 311, 312. 

Gibbon on Roman Empire, 209. 

Gilbert's. Miss, Fair Haven 
Reminiscences, 67, 196. 

Golden. The, Belt of Ireland, 1. 

Gordon. William, English histor- 
ian, 132, 136. 

Goshen, 84. 

Gould, James, 74, TJ. 

Gouverneur, Mrs. S. L., Jr., 60, 
493- 

Governor and Council, 157. 

Governor, Provincial, 58. 

Graham's, Dr. John A., account 
of Colonel Lyon, 197. 

Granger, Gideon, 446. 

Grants of money, 58. 

Grattan, Henry, 2, 16, 22. 

Great Jehovah, The, and Con- 
tinental Congress, 113. 

Great Britain. 172. 

Green Mountains, 82, 84, 85, 95, 
98, 100. 

Green Mountain Boys, 71, 78, 91, 
96, loi, 113, 116, 119, 129, 13s, 
151, 170, 171, 172, 173, 338. 

Green, Rev. Ashbel, on Lyon, 
226, 227, 229, 306. 

Grenville carries through the 
Stamp Act, 53. 

Griswold, Roger, 71, 158, 218, 
225, 226. The fight with Lyon, 
228, 233, 247 to 300. 

Gross fabrications, 180. 

Grow, G. A., and L. M. Keitt, 
fight in Congress; others en- 
gaged, 304. 

Gunn-Baldwin Quarrel in Con- 
gress, 301. 

Gurney, Fort, 84. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



519 



Haldimand intrigue. Origin of 
at Governor Wolcott's house 
in Litchfield, 78, loi, 106, 162, 
163, 169, 171, 172, 174, 176, 177, 
178, 181, 217. 

Hall's, Hiland, History of Ver- 
mont, 97, 103. 

Hamilton, Alexander, lOl, 169, 
195. Apostle of Centralization, 
219, 220, 310, 311, 312. In the 
ascendant, 313, 314, 315. Down 
and out, his character, 318, 

319, ^■ 

Hampshire Grants, 89, 93, 98. 
Origin of controversy, 100. No 
historian of it, 102, 120, 141, 
159, 160, 166. 

Hancock, John, 169. 

Hannah, Hugh, 62, 63, 67, 68, 72. 

Harper, Robert Goodloe, 209, 
227, 232, 319. His tell-tale let- 
ter to Burr, 385, 386, 387, 388. 

Harper's Ferry Armory, 69. 

Hartford, 64. 

Harvey, Peter, on Webster and 
JefTerson, 201. 

Haswell, Anthony, 376. 

Hawley, Jehiel, 156. 

Plazleton, John, 69. 

Hearts of Steel Boys, 13. 

Heights of Abraham, 83. 

Henry, Patrick, 58, 59, 141, 318. 

Hepburn, William P., 427. 

Herrick, Colonel, 144, 155. 

Hessians, The, 134. 

Hibernia Dominicana, 3. 

Hildreth's History, 437. 

Hillsborough, Gates escapes to, 
128. 

Hinman's Historical Collections, 
44, 67, 131, 210. 

Historic drama, 207. 



Hitchcock, Samuel, Ira Allen to, 

177- 
Holstein and Holland, 11. 
Hopkins, John, of Salem, 98. 
Hosford, Miss, niece of Ethan 

Allen; Introduction, 62. Her 

marriage to Colonel Lyon, 70, 

72. 
House of Representatives, 82. 
Howe, General, 130, 132. 
Hubbardton, 133, 134, 135, 142, 

174- 

Hudson, Hendrick, sells his prov- 
ince to Dutch, no. 

Hudson river, 84, 136, 137. 

Hunter, R. M. T., 87. 

Humorous view of Spitting Matt 
and Roger Knight of Rheum- 
ful Countenance, 227. 

Independence, American, 144. 
Inhabitants of the Grants flee, 

175- 
Insurrections in the North of 

Ireland, 8. 
Intrigue of British and Vermont- 

ers, 170. 
Irish-American Hampden, i. 
Irish fairs, i. State Trials, 14. 

Race, 18. 
Irish and English Parliaments, 

20. 
Iroquois Indians, 83, 100. 
Irving, Washington, 93, 94, 127, 

131, 168. 
Ives, Abraham, 98. 
Ives, Lent, 98. 1 

Ives, Nathaniel, 98. 

Jackson, Abraham, 98, 160. 
Jackson, Joseph, 98. 



520 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Jackson, Andrew, g, 213, 214, 226, 

303. 465- 

Jackson, Stonewall, 9, 73. 

James the First, 19, 50. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 54. 80, 82, 195, 
210, 214, 219. Apostle of De- 
mocracy, 219, 227, 231, 232, 233, 
307, 322, 376, 391, 392, 416, 417, 
433. 437, 441, 447, 448, 462, 463, 
467. 

Jericho, 122, 125, 129, 130, 159, 
163, 176. 

Johnson, One, of Grubb street, 
214. 

Junius, 54. 

Kent, Chancellor, 55, 86. 
Kentucky, 62, 82, loi, 136, 407 to 

431, 437, 438, 471, 473, 474- 
Key, Philip Barton, 55. 
Keys of Champlain, 115. 
Kilbourne's, P. K., Litchfield 

Biographical History, 30, 61. 
King, The, 106, 112. 
King's Mountain, Battle of, 155. 
Kittera, Congressman, 227. 
Kipling, Rudyard, paraphrases 

Lyon's oath, 218. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 64. 

Land of Steady Habits, 88. 

Lake Champlain, 82, 84, 100, 130, 
132. 

Lanman, Charles, 28. 

Laurens, Colonel, Envoy to 
France, 95. 

Laud, Archbishop, called by 
Puritans Short Horns of Anti- 
Christ, 77. 

Lee. General Charles, 128. 

Lecky's Leaders of Irish Opin- 
ion, 8, 22. 



Legislature Of Vermont on 
Wheels, 92. 

Leigh, Benjamin Watkins, 384. 

Leavenworth, Jesse, 60. 

Leinster, second exodus from, 
12. Three hundred and eighty- 
five thousand acres "dis- 
covered" in, 19. 

Lexington, Battle of, 113, 114. 

Linn, Dr., of New Jersey, 318. 

Lingard the historian, 384. 

Litchfield County Convention, 
66, 69, 73. Its famous Law 
School and social life, 75, 76. 
Its Pioneers, 78, 80, 84, 99, 166. 
Nursing Mother of Vermont, 
169. 

Lodge, H. C, 316. 

Lossing, Benson J., the historian, 
28. 

Lucas, Charles, the Irish leader, 
18, 22, 23, 25. 

Lucas, William, on John Ran- 
dolph's eloquence, 435. 

Lyon, Chittenden, 62. His boy- 
ish fists resent Wooden Sword, 
179. Described by Dr. Bea- 
man, 180, 417, 421. 

Lyon, James, 24, 206, 415. 

Lyon, Loraine, daughter of Mat- 
thew, her death, 81, 408, 412, 
414. 

Lyon, Beulah, second wife of 
Matthew, date of her birth, 32. 
Her noble character, 341. 

Lyon, Matthew S., 27, 416. 

Lyon, Thompson A., 163, 425, 
426. 

Lyon, Ann, Pamelia and Lor- 
aine, daughters of Matthew, 80. 

Lyon, Margaret A., marries 
Senator W. B. Machcn, 422. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



$21 



Lyon, General Hylon B., 426. 

Lyon, Lieutenant Frank, in sea 
fight off Santiago, 427. 

Lyon, Matthew. His parents, 6. 
His father said to have been 
executed, 7. Set out for Amer- 
ica in 1765 during second 

.* Irish exodus, 12. His mother, 
14. He adopts five youngest 
children of Mrs. Edwards, his 
sister, 15. His school days, 15. 
His democratic spirit, 17. Op- 
poses parades of Congressmen 
through streets, 24. Publishes 
a Life of Franklin, 26. Models 
himself on Dr. Lucas, 26. 
Lyon's autobiography lost, 27. 
Errors as to his age, 28. His 
true age, 29. Career in Con- 
necticut, 31. Family record, 
31. Children of his second 
marriage, 32. Births and 
deaths, 32. Dates of his own 
birth and death, 32. Sources 
of this biography, 33. Why he 
left Ireland, 35. Does not an- 
swer his traducers, 36. Fare- 
well to his mother; sails as 
cabin boy, 38. His indentures 
to Jabez Bacon, 41. His sick- 
ness at sea, 42. Arrives in year 
of Stamp Act, 44. Reaches 
Ancient Woodbury; Bacon's 
example, 45. Same scenes in 
Wicklow and New York, with 
a difference, 47. Lyon in Con- 
necticut, 59, 60. His descend- 
ants, 60. Further accounts of 
Lyon and his marriage in Con- 
necticut, 61, 62. Bought for a 
pair of stags, 68. His stand- 



ing; becomes a Connecticut 
freeman, 71, 80. His children; 
closing days in land of Steady 
Habits; departure for Hamp- 
shire Grants, 80 to 113. War; 
made Adjutant in the army, 116. 
Second lieutenant; military af- 
fairs, 119 to 121. Stroke of 
misfortune; tried by court 
martial and dismissed by Gen- 
eral Gates from army; his Con- 
gressional narrative of the af- 
fair and of Gates's injustice; 
British irruption into Vermont; 
his wife and children take 
refuge in Connecticut; Lyon's 
military exploits, 121 to 175. 
He moves to Arlington, 175 to 
178. Impeached but proves 
his innocence and defeats his 
enemies; chastises Nathaniel 
Chipman; record of his im- 
peachment and triumphant vin- 
dication here for first time col- 
lated and brought to light in 
authentic shape, 179 to 190. 
Ethan Allen uncle of Lyon's 
wife; his intimacy with Lyon; 
anecdote of his daughter Lor- 
aine Allen and Matthew Lyon; 
her friendship for him; his mar- 
ried life; has four children; 
death of his wife; becomes 
wealthy; Governor Chittenden 
and Colonel Lyon crush out 
Toryism at Arlington; they be- 
come warm friends; Lyon's 
marriage to the Governor's 
daughter, the widow Beulah 
Galusha; his great business 
qualities; Deputy Secretary of 



522 



GENERAL INDEX. 



the Council; Secretary of 
Board of War; Lyon's Works; 
founder of Fair Haven in 1783; 
high tributes to him by Dr. 
Graham, E. P. Walton, H. B. 
Dawson and Dr. Dwight, 191 
to 197. Lyon's character; 
pioneer Democrat of New Eng- 
land; doctrinaire and thunder- 
bolt; candidate for United 
States Senate in 1791; his in- 
flexible perseverance described 
by Pliny H. White; elected to 
Congress; his busy schemes 
and works at Fair Haven; ex- 
tract from his letter to Presi- 
dent Monroe; a ship builder; 
he fosters literature; Dt. Will- 
iams refuses to insert his letter 
in Rutland Herald; Lyon starts 
the Scourge of Aristocracy; 
indicted, convicted, fined and 
imprisoned; 199 to 208. Perse- 
cution of Lyon kills Alien and 
Sedition laws; he reinforces 
Albert Gallatin in Congress; 
his trenchant speech on high 
blood and royal ceremonies in 
the House; Federalists raise 
hue and cry against him; Gris- 
wold insults him; Lyon spits 
in his face; subject referred to 
a committee; detailed narrative 
of the affair, and of the fierce 
and combined attack on Lyon 
of the FederaHsts who tried to 
expel him; letters of public 
men on the scenes in the 
House, humorous side of the 
fracas; newspaper accounts; 
the testimony before Congress; 



the arguments and final failure 
to expel him, 209 to 305. The 
Lyon-Griswold fight rouses 
the bull dog in John Adams, 
306. Alien and Sedition laws 
passed to crush Lyon, 307. 
Striking similarity between the 
case of John Hampden and 
that of Matthew Lyon; in Ver- 
gennes jail; his letter to Gen- 
eral Mason; speech from his 
cell window; the long lost 
official report of his trial; great 
multitude present at his re- 
lease; a welcome like that to 
Admiral Dewey; Lyon de- 
scribes his imprisonment in a 
speech in Congress, 324 to 381. 
Lyon's vote elects Jefferson 
President; Bayard, Harper, 
Hildreth and Lodge answered, 
and their claims refuted by his- 
torical facts; Lyon's pungent 
letter to ex-President Adams; 
he removes to Kentucky; 
founds Eddyville; elected to 
the State Legislature and again 
to Congress; his commanding 
station on the majority side of 
the House; placates Gallatin's 
angry feelings towards Gov- 
ernor Claiborne; savage debate 
between John Randolph and 
Matthew Lyon. 395 to 455. 
Lyon opposes war of 1812, at- 
tacks Madison and loses his 
seat in the House, 456 to 470. 
President Monroe appoints 
Colonel Lyon Factor to the 
Cherokee Nation; he is elected 
to Congress once more from 



GENERAL INDEX. 



523 



Territory o? Arkansas; the old 
pioneer's last famous journey; 
his illness and death; his re- 
ligious faith; his letter against 
disunion to Josiah Quincy; his 
letter to Senator A. C. Mason; 
his deposition on Wilkinson 
and Burr; his farewell letter in 
Niles's Register a political cu- 
riosity, 472 to 502. 

Machen, Willis B., 422 to 425. 

Machen, Edward C, Introduc- 
tion, 426. 

Macon, Nathaniel, 319, 470, 490. 

Madison, James, 232 to 235. His 
letter on John Adams, 309, 376, 
432. 

Maine, two ships from, 65. 

Manchester, 85, 135, 137, 140, 142, 
143, 145, 159, 160. 

Mansfield, Lord, 53, 54. 

Marshall, Chief Justice, 53 to 57, 
311, 312. Opposes Jefferson, 
432, 434, 435. 

Maryland deserts Burr to save 
Federal capital, 387, 390. 

Mason, Stevens Thompson, 135, 
138, 156, 161. His ride to Ver- 
gennes jail, 376, 377, 491. 

Mason, Armisted C, 61. Slain 
in a duel, 113, 301. Lyon's let- 
ter to, 494 to 502. 

Massachusetts, 82, 84, 85, loi, 105, 
106. Boundary line of, 107, 
131. 135. 170. 

Mattocks, Samuel, 99. 

Mazzei letter a forgery, 433, 434. 

McGee, Thomas D'Arcy, 10, 40. 

McMahon, John V. L., 59. 

Messenger, John, 80, 412. 

Middlebury, 123. 



Middle States, 131. 

MifHin, General, 128. 

Military Grants, 100. 

Miller, Warner, 199. 

Ministry, The, 106. 

Minute Men of Vermont, 114, 
115- 

Mississippi river captains, 410. 

Molyneux the friend of Locke,' 
17. His Case of Ireland, 21. 

Monarchic Masque, 210. 

Monarchy threatened, 212. 

Monarchy-breeding birthdays, 
310. 

Monroe, James, 60, 214, 311, 376, 
468, 469, 472. 

Montcalm, 83, 118. 

Montgomery, General, 117. Or- 
derly book of, 118. His death 
at Quebec, 118, 131. 

Montpelier, 144. 

Montreal, 117. 

Mount Independence, 132. De- 
fiance or Sugar Hill, 133. 

Moore, Tom, 5, 474. 

Morris, Lewis R., 319, 391, 393. 

Morris, Gouverneur, 391. 

Morris's Litchfield, 62. 

Mowgli's Oath, adapted by Rud- 
yard Kipling from Colonel 
Lyon, 218. 

Munster, second exodus from, 
12. 

Murray, William Vans, appointed 
Minister to France, 317. 

Myrmidon, A, seizes a Green 
Mountain Boy, I02. 

Navigation Act, 56. 
Newbury, 149. 

New England, 83, 86, 87, 131, 141, 
169. 



524 



GENERAL INDEX. 



New France, 52, 83. 

New Hampshire, 82, 97, lOl, 105. 
Boundaries of defined, 107, 115, 
170. 

New Hampshire Grants, 61, 78, 
81, 121. 

New Haven, 64. 

New Netherlands, 104, no. Cap- 
tured in 1660 by EngHsh, no. 
Recaptured in 1673 by Dutch, 
110. Surrendered by Treaty of 
Breda to EngHsh the next year, 
no. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 26. 

New world, 169. 

New York Historical Magazine 
on Matthew Lyon. 198. 

New York, 65. Market, 65, 78, 
86. Documentary History of, 
97. Officials, 100, loi, 105, 106. 
Land jobbers in, in. Sheriffs 
of, in collision with Vermont- 
ers, 112, 131, 132, 141, 169, 170. 

Niles's Register, Matthew Lyon's 
letter in, 502 to 510. 

Non-Importation Act of 1699, 13. 

North, Lord, 113. 

Northern Department, 131, 148. 

North and South, balance of 
power between, loi. 

North Wallingford, 160. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 459. 

Oak Boys, 13. 

O'Byrnes, The Clan of the, 3. 

O'Callaghan, Dr. E. B., on New 
York boundaries, 109. His 
Documentary History of New 
York, n7. 



O'Connor, Matthew, Irish his- 
torian, 7, 12. 
O'Connell, Daniel, 22. 
O'Kavanaghs, The Clan of the, 

3- 

Old Council of Safety in Ver- 
mont, 130, 142 to 146, 151 to 
153, 157 to 163. 166, 172. Its 
secrets buried, 178. 

Old Guard, or Democratic Re- 
publican party founded by 
Governor Chittenden and Mat- 
thew Lyon, 176, 182. 

Old Noll in Ireland, 4. 

O'Leary Father, 6, 17. 

Old World, 169. 

Olin, Gideon, 142, 148. 

O'Neil, The, 22. 

Onion River Land Company, 81. 

Onion, or Winooski river, 85, 
122, 123, 130. 

Oracles of Reason, Ethan Allen's, 

91- 

Orators and flatterers, Distinc- 
tion between, 309. 

Otis, Harrison Gray, 224. 

Otis, James, 54, 58. 

O'Tooles, The Clan of the, 3. 

Otter Creek, 87, 138. 

Paris, Celebration of surrender 
of Cornwallis at, 96. Treaty 
of, 100. 

Parker, Isaac, 227. 

Parliament, The, 52. 

Paterson's, Judge, arbitrary con- 
duct on the bench, 356, 381. 

Paumperaug Valley, 64. 

Pawlet, 137. 

Peep of Day Boys, 13. 

Pendleton, Edmund, 232. ^ 



GENERAL INDEX. 



525 



Peter Porcupine, William Cob- 
bett as, unrivalled scold of 
American politics, 212, 213, 214, 
235. His Gazette on Lyon- 
Griswold fight, 240 to 247. 
Lampoons Jeflferson, Monroe, 
Gallatin, Jackson and Lyon, 
467. 

Pennsylvania, Forests of, 168. 

People of Vermont want to pay 
Colonel Lyon's fine, zy^- 

Phelps, James H., 160. 

Phooca, The phantom steed, 4. 

Pickering, Timothy, 311. His 
extraordinary commufucation 
to Congress, 312. 

Pilgrims, The, of Plymouth, 95. 

Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 
311- 

Pinckney, Thomas, 227, 232. 

Pitt, William, the elder, on tax- 
ing America, 49. 

Pittsford, 119. 

Plantagenets, The, 18. 

Plowden's History of Ireland, 12. 

Plymouth, Patent of, by James 
the First, 107. 

Poore, Ben Perley, 28. 

Porter, Gen. Peter B., 74. 

Port Folio, Dr. Dennie's, 439. 

Portraits of history, 215. 

Poultney river, 88. 

Poyning's Law, 21. 

President of Congress, 94. 

President of the United States, 
87. 

Presidential election of 1801; er- 
rors of Hildreth, Lodge, and 
others on it, 383. 

Prices under apprentice system, 
68. 



Printer and bookbinder, Mat- 
thew Lyon a, 15. 

Proclamation, Savage, by Bur- 
goyne, 141. 

Proprietary or Governor, 58. 

Protestants and Catholics, 13. 

Provincial Congress of New 
York, 116, 117. 

PufTendorf on the Law of Na- 
tions, 172. 

Puritan and Patroon, 100. 

Quakers, The, ^(}. 

Queen Anne, 20. 

Questionable affair, 176. 

Quids, The, organized in Con- 
gress by John Randolph, 441. 

Quincy, Josiah, 60, 61, 89. Col- 
onel Lyon's letters to, 486 to 
490. 

Quincy, Miss Eliza Susan, sends 
author Colonel Lyon's original 
letters to her father, 60. Her 
own letter, 485, 486. 

Quintilian on Mountaineers, 4. 
On orators, 310. 

Rack- Rents, 11. 

Randall, Joseph, 98. 

Randall, Dr., on 1801 election. 
391- 

Randolph, Edmund, 219. 

Randolph, John, of Roanoke, on 
true leaders, 202. Challenges 
Daniel Webster to fight a 
duel, 301. His revelations of 
warlike plans to seat Jeflferson 
in 1801 in Presidency, 394. 
Results achieved by Jefferson 



526 



GENERAL INDEX. 



and Randolph, 436. He votes 
to refund Lyon's fine, 440. 
Leads the Quids; Jefferson 
underrates Randolph, 441. 
Randolph assails Gideon 
Granger and excites hostility 
in his party, 444. Clash im- 
pending between Lyon and 
Randolph, 449. The Virginian 
attacks Bidwell and breaks 
with Jefferson, 449. No one 
able to take his place as leader 
of House, 450. He attacks 
Lyon who retorts fiercely, 453, 
454. Sawyer's anecdote, 458, 
Whittier's poem on Randolph 
as Bard, Sage and Tribune, 458. 
Reported attack of Tristam 
Burgess on Randolph a myth, 
458. The Randolph-Clay duel, 
301. 

Redemptioners, 34. 

Read, David, 162. 

Reeve, Tapping, 74, 77. 

Regiment of Rangers, 153. 

Report of a British spy, 162, 163. 

Revolution, The, 93, 103, 113, 131, 
134, 135, 161, 169. 

Revolutionary gun of Colonel 
Lyon, 414. 

Reynolds's Governor, Sketch jof 
Lyon, 427, 428. 

Riedesel, Baron, 134, 135. 

Roaring Brook, The, 99. 

Robin Hood, Ethan Allen called, 
100. 

Robinson, Captain, 81. Moses, 
142, 176. Samuel, 142. The 
two Robinsons, 147, 150. 

Robinson, Beverley, the Tory, 
171. 



Robinson, R. E., on immense 
multitude that accompanied 
Lyon from Vergennes jail; In- 
troduction, 379, 380. 

Roe, Mrs. Eliza A., daughter of 
Matthew Lyon, 7, 29. She cor- 
rects errors about her father, 
37. Her letter to author rela- 
tive to her father's emigration, 
39, 41, 69. Her book of recol- 
lections of Frontier Life, 99. 
Another book, An Abolition 
story, by Mrs. Roe, 99. Inci- 
dents of her father's removal to 
Kentucky quoted from her 
book, 411 to 414. 

Roe, John H., 425. 

Rood, Azariah, 130. 

Rothschild, the Napoleon of fi- 
nance, 66. 

Roundheads, The, 50. 

Rowan, Archibald Hamilton, 43. 
Calls Congress a " boxing 
school," 235. 

Rowley, Tom, the Shoreham 
bard, 98, 142, 148, 150. 

Royce, Stephen, 99. 

Rush, Dr., 128. 

Rutland, 87, 164. 

Rutland Herald, 206. 

Rutledge, John, 227. 

Sabine's Loyalists gives names of 
swarms of Tories, 201. 

Safford, Samuel, 176. 

St. Clair, Gen. Arthur, 130 to 136. 
His army, 137, 139. 

St. Kevin and the Lady, 5. 

St. Leger's, General, tell-tale let- 
ter, 79, 173- 



GENERAL INDEX. 



52;: 



Salem Gazette on Colonel Lyon, 

199. 
Salisbury, Connecticut, 6g, 70, 72, 

90, 91- 
Saratoga, 128, 132, 140, 155, 157, 

170, 173, 174- 
Sanderson, Rev. H. H., 100, 164. 
Scourge of Aristocracy, 24, "](>, 

80, 207, 208, 327 to ZZI- 
Scott, Sir Walter, 5, z-]T. 
Scott, the backwoodsman of 

Wallingford, 98. 
Scotch Irish, a propitiatory name, 

9- 

Scotchmen, Thrifty, 19. 

Schleswig-Holstein question, 103. 

Schuyler, Gen. Philip, restores 
Lyon to Continental army, and 
appoints him paymaster, 126, 
131, 132, 137 to 140. 

Secret negotiations of Vermont- 
ers with the British, 171. 

Sedition law, 165. 

Senate and House of Representa- 
tives in Philadelphia, 236. 

Severe rebuke of John Jay to 
Alexander Hamilton, 316. 

Sewall, Samuel, introduces reso- 
lution to expel Matthew Lyon 
from Congress, 227. 

Seward. William H., 314, 432. 

Seymour, Horatio, 74. 

Sheffield, 84. 

Sheehy. Rev. Nicholas, butchered 
by English, Introduction. 

Sheehy, Edmimd, put to death by 
English, Introduction. 

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 16. 

Sheridan, Gen. Philip, 226. 

Sherman, John, and J. M. 
Wright in a sharp scuffle on 
floor of the House, 304. 



Shillalah, Forest of, r. 
Shorthand reporters, 320. 
Skeensborough, 133, 135, 137. 
Slade's State Papers, 143, 178. 

His speech on welcome to 

Colonel Lyon, 378. 
Smallpox in American army, 118. 
Smith, John Cotton, yj. 
Smith, Congressman, 227. 
Snobbium Gatherum, Ladies of, 

210. 
Sons of Liberty, 46, 59, 113. 
South Carolina students, 78, 80. 

State of, 87. 
Southey, Robert, 86. 
Southern students at Litchfield, 

78. 
Spafiford, Jonathan, 84, 166. 
Sparks's, Jared, Life of Ethan 

Allen, 104. On the Intrigue, 

177- 
Spencer, Benjamin, 97. 
Spencer, Squire, a traitor, 149. 
Spenser, Edmund, the poet, 3. 
Spies and informers, 14. 
Springfield Armory, 69. 
Spooner, Paul, 142, 148, 149. 

Mr. Spooner, 206. 
Squatter Sovereignty, 98. 
Stamp Act passed, 46. Stamps 

surrendered to mayor of New 

York, 46, 53, 56, 58, 63, 66. 
Stark, Gen. John, 79, 91, 142, 169, 

173, 174- 
Stars and Stripes, 156. 
State Archives at Albany, 117. 
State Trials of the United States, 

82. 
Stephens, Alexander H., 226. 

He describes a fist fight on 

floor of Congress, 305. 



528 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Stephens, Linton, 226. 
Stockbridge. 84. 
Stone, Col. William L., 174- 
Storm, Violent, during meeting 

of Vermonters, 141. 
Story's, Judge, Law School, 74. 
Strafford, The remorseless, 19. 
Street pageants by Congressmen, 

310. 
Strongbow in Ireland, 4. 
Strong. John, 84. 
Struggles of Vermont, 175. 
Stuart, The, dynasty, 18. 
Sullivan, General, 119, I33- 
Sumner, Charles, 432. 
Sunderland, I43> I57- 
Supreme Court of United States, 

432. 

Swarms of Irish arrive in Amer- 
ica, 43- 

Swift, Dean, 12, 17. His Drap- 
ier's Letters, 21. 

Swiss, The, Cantons, 91. 

Talleyrand a match for Hamil- 
ton at intrigue, 313, 3i4- 

Taney, Roger B., 432. 

Taylor, George, signer of Dec- 
laration of Independence, a re- 
demptioner, 40, 73. 

Taylor, John, of Caroline, 376. 

Tell, William, 91. 

Territory of Arkansas, 165. 

Thackeray, W. M., on Washing- 
ton, 168. 

Thebaud's, Father, Irish Race, 
Past and Present, 19. 

Thompson's, D. P., address and 
quotations from speech of Mat- 
thew Lyon, 144, 145, 148, 162. 

Thompson's, Dr., History of Ver- 
mont, 134. 



Thompson, Charles, the old Per- 
petual Secretary of the Con- 
tinental Congress, 320. 

Thompson, Waddy, of South 
Carolina, makes a vigorous 
speech, and secures restitution 
of Colonel Lyon's fine. 325. 
He compares him to John 
Hampden, 325. 

Ticonderoga, 71, 84, 85, 92. 95, 
97, 113. First offensive blow 
of Americans, 113 to 115, 129 
to 133. 135, 142, i6r. 174, 180. 
Its warlike implements beaten 
into plough shares, 196. 

Tinmouth, 72, 98. 

Tithes, II. 

Tomlinson, Isaac, 67. 

Tory speculators, 113. Influence 
General Gates, 120, 136, 152, 
156, 162, 166. Their names 
suppressed, 178. Become Fed- 
eralists, 201. They destroy that 
party, 201. They dislike Jeffer- 
son and Lyon, 201. 

Tracy, Uriah, 74. 

Traitor, A, in Vermont, 146. 

Travels of Dr. Dwight in New 
England and New York, 85. 

Treaty of Paris, 53. 

Trumbull's Colonial Records, 64. 

Trumbull, John, 134. 

Tryon, Governor, 97. Puts a 
price on Ethan Allen's head, 
102. 

Tucker, Prof. George, 210. 

Tucker, John Randolph, Intro- 
duction. 

Tudors, The, 18. 

Tupper, Sergeant, 79, 173. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



529 



Turney, Congressmen, and Bell 
engage in a free fight on floor 
of House, 302. 

Ulster, The Irish of, 9. 

Union, Admission of Vermont 
to. 102. 

United States, loi, 172. People 
of, roused to warlike pitch 
against France, 313. 

United States Statute for pro- 
tection of women, 42. 

Upset price for Vermont, $30,000, 
102. 

Valley of Lake Champlain, 82, 

85. 

Valley Forge, 94. 

Vander Donck's outlines of New 
York boundaries, 109. 

Vattel, 172. 

Venable, Congressman, 227. 

Vergennes, Count de, 168. 

Vergennes Jail, 26, 338 to 355, 
374 to 380, 382. 

Vermont, 62, 78. Child of Litch- 
field county, 79, 82, 85, 88, 93. 
Lands of, 100, loi. Fortune's 
favorite child, loi, 102, 105, 129, 
135. Historical Society, 140. 
Constitution adopted, 141, 142, 
148, 156, 158, 161, 162, 167, 170, 
171, 172, 174, 177. 

Vermonters, 113, 115, 173. 
Honest shame of, 178. 

Vermont families, a number of 
them go to Kentucky with 
Colonel Lyon, 413. 

View of the State of Ireland, by 
Edmund Spenser, 3. 

Virginia, 141. 



Volunteers, Irish, Grattan and 

the, 22. 
Von Hoist, Dr. H. E., 316. 

Wadleigh, F. A., 157. His ac- 
count of Tory tribulations, 181. 

Wallingford, 72, 85, 87, 97 to 99. 
Centennial of, 99, 100, 113, 119, 
129, 159. Whigs of, 160, 164. 

Walpole, Robert, 49. 

Walpole, Horace, 127. 

Walshes, Clan of the, 3. 

Walton, E. P., of Montpelier, 
102, 144, 157, 158, 162, 163. His 
opinion of Matthew Lyon, 195, 
197, 198. 

Warner, Seth, at Ancient Wood- 
bury, 48, 66, 80, 82, 91. Lieu- 
tenant Colonel, 116. His ser- 
vices in Canada, 117 to 121, 133 
to 135, 139, 140, 142, 155, 156, 
163, 165, 171, 226. 

Washington, George, 64, 94, 95, 
96, 127. Gates's open rupture 
with, 128, 131, 134, 147. Sides 
with Hamilton against Adams. 
219, 311. Commander-in-Chief, 
314. An eye opener, 314. 
Sinks the partisan in the 
patriot, 315. Fathoms Burr, 

387. 
Washington City, Great changes 
at, after Jefferson's election, 

431- 
Watchman, The Vermont, 158. 
Weare, Governor, 170. 
Webster, Daniel, Epigram of, 58, 

86. His remark on Jefferson. 

201. 
Wentworth, Benning, 81, 100, 

102, 105, 107, III. 



530 



GENERAL INDEX. 



West Haven, 88. 

West Hill, 98. 

Western Republic, 169. 

Westward the course of Empire, 
Berkeley, 38. 

Westward Ho! Colonel Lyon 
sets out for Kentucky, 410. 

Wexford County, Ireland, 3. 

Wharton, Francis, his State Triah 
of United States, Introduction, 
28, 33, 82. On Lyon's trial, 
337. Extols Lyon's demeanor, 
340. 

White Boys, Introduction, 6, 13. 

Whitehall, Letters patent from, 
107. 

White, Pliny H., his account of 
Colonel Lyon, 42, 59, 60, 141, 
158, 163, 164, 165, 19s, 339, 378, 
395- 

Whittier. John G., his Song of 
the Vermonters, 167. His 
poem on John Randolph, 455. 

Wicklow, birthplace of Matthew 
Lyon, Introduction, i. Its 
scenery, 2. Manners of peo- 
ple, 2. 

Wilkinson, Gen. James, his trib- 
ute to Matthew Lyon, 137. He 
relates how Lyon rescued army 
from Burgoyne. His letter to 
Colonel Lyon, 483 to 485. 

Williams, Dr., 103. Editor of 
Rutland Herald, 206. Refuses 
to publish Colonel Lyon's let- 
ter, 326. 

Williams, Congressman, 227. 

William of Orange, 6, 20, 51. 
Confirms New York-Connecti- 
cut agreement, 108. 



Williamstown College, alma 
mater of President Garfield, 84. 

Williston, 8s, 87. 

Wilson, F. A., sends to author, 
Lyon's family record, 31. 

Windsor Convention, 140, 141, 
142, 160. 

Windsor Journal, 199, 206. Pub- 
lishes Lyon's letter for which 
he was indicted, 207. 

Winooski Falls, 81. 

Wise, Henry A., A wordy war, 
302. His fight with John Stan- 
ley in House, 305. 

Wolcott, Oliver, Sr., 74, "jt. 

Wolcott, Oliver, Jr. His in- 
credible treachery to John 
Adams, 220. Stinging com- 
ment of Charles Francis 
Adams, 220. 

Wolfe, Gen. James, 83, 118. 

Wooden, The, sword, brandished 
at Philadelphia, 215. 

Woodruff's History of Litchfield 
County, 30, 61, 62. 

Woodstock, 158. 

Wooster, General, 119. 

Wright, Jonathan, 130, 133. 

Yale College, "]"]. College buys 
Scourge of Aristocracy, 208. 

Yazoo frauds. Secretaries Madi- 
son, Gallatin and Lincoln as 
United States Commissioners 
favor compromise of dispute, 
443. Subject warmly debated 
in House, 443. Lyon pro- 
nounced great debater by Mr. 
Elliot, 443. The scandal does 
not help the Federalists, 447. 

Yorkers, 93, 100, 102, 113. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



531 



Yorktown, 96, 155. 
Young, The, Pretender, 6. 
Young, Thomas, 92. 

X Y Z imposture, 211, 312. A 



blackmailing scheme, 313. Like 
Fort Sumter it fired the popu- 
lar heart, and war with France 
was narrowly averted, 314. 






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